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Free Agile Port Systems Essay Sample
An Agile Port is defined as "as marine terminal capable of accommodating military surge and sustainment cargoes while minimizing disruption of commercial operations within the terminal." These APs have multiple capabilities that range from accommodating a variety of vessel types to having the flexibility and agility to expand commercial throughput capacity for military loading operations. An AP can also be viewed through multiple perspectives. This paper will focus on the capabilities of an AP and the commercial and military perspectives thereof. Furthermore, it will discuss the Agile Port System (APS), the types of terminals associated with an APS, and the role of an APS within the United States Maritime Administration.
In the execution of the main purpose of this paper, several projects were reviewed to give as much information as possible on the AP and the systems associated with this. The major components of the analyzed projects included; the assessment of the parameters of the port, the development of the environmental parameters, development of the list of sea base asset, development of simulation test matrix, demonstrations of these simulations that have been developed, data evaluation, and assessment of the suitability of the vessel in the accomplishment of the mission objectives.
One of the most important things in the establishment of any AP is the criteria that are used in the selection of the port. The port to be settled on should accomplish all the necessary selection criteria. This criterion is based on; a clear evaluation of the hydrographical and meteorological challenges, posing of a real potential the access requirements of the port, and consideration of the available data on topographic and hydrographic data that is readily available. It is also necessary to consider a system that is suitable for modeling and simulation of the best system ever. Another very essential thing to consider is the criteria to use in the selection of the vessel or the ship to use too. The vessel is part of the list of the sea base assets and its selection too is very important and should incorporate all the characteristics in the selection criterion. It is a true representative of the contemporary as well as the projected capabilities of the sealift. The performance data as well as the dimensions are then availed to the modeling and simulation purposes of the hydrostatic purposes. It is wise to note that the size of the vessel would present some exceptional challenges that are involved with ship handling.
AP act in a flexible way, they have been used in the past to distribute the business throughput capacity as well as infrastructure meant to assist in the loading of military operations. The concept behind AP is the establishment a method to increase the throughput as mentioned earlier and the actual increase as mentioned in the systems that have already implemented it is an estimation of about 40 %. The process of increasing the throughput in most of the ports has become a big challenge. This especially happens in cases of large containers that become complex around a precise time slot.
Ap systems are meant to facilitate the fast movement of cargo through the port. The infrastructure that they assist developing facilitates these processes in a fast, cheap and with minimal impact to the neighboring communities. These systems involve the use of High-speed systems of ship which are developed through the use of the latest technologies that will come up with faster ships for military or commercial cargo. This will involve the use of vessels employing multi-hull, fluid computation, tools that optimize dynamics, latest ship control systems or propulsion systems, High-speed vessels as well as lifting bodies, and small sea marketing encompassing economic feasibility and costal ferry selections. These ports ensure an improved productivity of accessible facilities.
One of this is the establishment of management systems supply chains as well as logistics through the collaboration of the intermodal military as well as commercial cargo movements. This is a major feature that is associated with the AP systems and has been executed through a number of strategies that were demonstrated through a number of systems that have been presented in this paper. This will be put in place to ensure that there are good transformations in the forces that the support systems associated with sea basing are established. These include; Heavy Airlift aided systems, Heavy Air Lift Seabasing Ship (HALSS) Trimaran logistic support and early insertion and Logistics Optimization (Sea base). This involved a study whose major aim was to come up with designs that could demonstrate the best test results. A thorough study was carried out regarding the necessary tools to come up with the best program that features dynamic load calculation and ship motion. This would facilitate the predictions of the high speed structural loads meant multi-hull vessels. The other study that was based on the same was a similar task and focused on an alternative that sought correlated as well as consolidated economic and technical assessments. These studies were conducted in a way that demonstrated the prelude market, technical and economic feasibility of a sea shipping service that would operate on the pacific sea commercially. In the sector of the AP, several additional studies were conducted and their aim was to aid in the determination of the compatibility of what was referred to as electric cargo conveyer (ECCO), or basically a system that facilitated the magnetic levitation of cargo as well as other transportation and requirements of the port.
The other is the incorporation of what was known as Strategic Mobility 21. This incorporated things like power projection systems as well as test logistic systems that are meant to serve a remote port, response logistics and sensing gadgets. The strategic mobility 21 also encompassed demonstration in the Pacific Northwest that was directed to a pressured utilization of the concept of commercial Agile port as well as controlling and supporting the surge load outs of the military. Simulated Analysis for the Access of the port is also another feature that will be incorporated. All these are incorporated in the introduction of sea basing as a way of generation of land power as well as solving certain challenges in the high level sea. Sea basing has gained a lot of popularity in regard to the relation to the generation of land power. This has been brought about by the decrease in the number of nations that are ready to give the US overseas bases. Among the major things that revolved around this issue was the discovery that sea-basing development could only be facilitated by the development of a carefully organized and consolidated fashion.
High speed technologies of the ship and Agile port is one of the most important things that this paper is meant to discuss. Through the use of multi-project programs research, agile port technologies as well as High Speed Ship (HSS) will be developed. The HSS program has been developing neutral networks whose principles are based on multi-faced optimization design tools that are required in the development of the multi-hull vessels whose speed is quite high and advanced. In the process of carrying out this project, there was an introduction of a project on the axial water jet. This played a major role in defining the characteristics of the hydrodynamic presentation as exhibited by the new and well researched design of the axial flow propulsion vessel.
One of the examples of a project that implemented the AP system is the Port of Tacoma. The main goal of the project was to ensure that the Tacoma Port became the most reliable and efficient intermodal entrance in the region of North America. Some of the major reasons why the port of Tacoma was best suited for the project was the fact that; the military cargo which is important to the local economy adds to the cargo diversity in the region, the port is strategically located, there more than forty three thousands personnel (militants and civilians) working in the military bases around the county. A projection study indicates that there will be immense intermodal congestion by the year 2020 as a result of the contemporary productivity as well as the levels of growth that are being realized in the North of America. Though there is not an assurance that there is an intermodal system in this area, the aggregated multiple, public and private modes, and these have basically the same characteristics in that they have minimized communication crosses and collaborations. The container forecast indicates that there is an expected increase of about 186% in the next two decades. The demand of this sector is that by the year 2020 it will have exceeded the current capacity of the majority of the Ports in the United States by a margin of more than 200%. The system also incorporated an extensive use of information technology in its management. However, the concept of the Agile Port can be considered as a very new idea but an prearranged way aimed at coming up with an organized and managed information that will assist in the reduction of the dwell time associated with container port terminal. It is also directed at increasing the terminal capacity as well. The incorporation of the IT thing has led to an increased 'velocity' that the container takes through the whole process due to the implementation of a timely, organized and accurate information without necessarily altering the labor, equipment and the management of the container. The reduction of the Terminal Dwell by half meant that the through put was doubled without any alteration. Basically this project involved the integration of a vessel that incorporated information systems on rail. These facilitated the simultaneous loading and discharging of the port. Some of the benefits that were realized through this system included; improved rail movement as well as the operations and planning, improvement of military force in terms of projection and planning, full utilization of the capabilities that come along with the deployment facility. The general benefits as a result of the IT are increased productivity of the Marine Terminal. This will amount to a 200% increase. The efficiency of the increased Marine terminal has also increased and the demand of complex equipments reduced. The required acreage is also less than what has been utilized with the other systems that have been in use.
