Implementation of Lean Logistics System in Material Handling Process of Break Water Construction

A port is a facility for receiving ships and transferring cargo. They are the major source of movement for large quantities of material. Breakwaters are essential construction in coastal engineering for the protection of coast, infrastructure and a key component in port design. Construction of breakwater involves wide range of activities that need transportation of resources from wide range of sources. Often these projects run into costly time and budget overruns. However they can be reined through proper logistics management and coordination of various activities. In the current project work, most of the materials required for construction of break water have been carried by ships and barges, making it necessary to plan activities in a way that would minimise the total cycle time required for the barge through lean logistics. Analysis of the entire operation has been carried out by constructing activity based timing chart. Many delays in the offshore dumping process have been observed due to lack of integration among the suppliers in the operation. Due to less rate of loading by using excavator, loading large capacity barge became impossible. Resource allocation model and Short Message Service (SMS) mode of communication has been formulated and implemented respectively to reduce the delays with better information sharing among the trading partners. Just in Time (JIT) principle has also been implemented to reduce the operating time of the excavator along with lean logistics through an end on loading jetty to increase the rate of loading of the barges. Results showed decrease in waiting time of the barge and elimination of the stock on the pontoon. By implementing lean logistics the loading rate has been increased from 250 MT/hour to 750 MT/hour optimising the utilisation of resources. Through this enhanced material flow rate has been achieved which further reduces the time and cost. Based on the results obtained through pilot run, suggestions towards improving the performance of the process have been made.