Maritime Transport: A Theoretical Analysis Under a System’s Approach

Abstract

Historically, maritime transportation has been the most common method to transport significant volumes of goods and creating commercial relationships between markets.

However, as a consequence of the evolution of the international commerce, other models have increased their relevance due to certain factors: specialization of the customer services (door to door), technological evolution, and geopolitical changes which extends the logistics chains beyond the port. Land transportation (by truck), the use of the rail transportation to move significant volumes of goods, air transportation for specialized cargo and shipping which require fast delivery, and the appearance of Intermodal transport, as the Motorways of the sea, in the case of Europe, show the need to analyzed and understand in details the current model on maritime transportation in order to identify and maximize their competitive advantages thru the identification of the value drivers.

In the value management, the most used and known methodology is the Porter Value Chain, for which all the system’s approach methodologies are applicable. Using this scope, a theoretical analysis will be performed over the activities and maritime process, identifying stakeholders, value drivers and competitive strategies.