Seaport Quality Score (SQS): a new direction for determining the competitiveness of seaports

Abstract

The seaport plays a crucial role in supply and demand chain operations, receiving inputs from supply sites to manufacturing facilities, redistributing inventory among different plants and distribution centers in the maritime cluster, and hub for delivering finished goods to consumers. Seaport operation is a major part of the costs incurred by most of the maritime supply chains. This research study aims to employ Seaport Quality Score (SQS) concept, which has been developed, validated, and established as a platform for measuring the competitiveness of seaports. The study is divided into three phases: defining seaport quality from the perspective of the Malaysian seaport system, measuring seaport performance indexes based on quality and measuring and revealing the seaport quality based on SQS concept. The results indicate that seaport effectiveness, reliability, and governance have a strong correlation with the seaport competitiveness and play a crucial role in the development of the Malaysian seaport system. This study demonstrates that improving seaport quality based on the SQS concept is crucial for the sustainability of the maritime industry and economic growth of Malaysia and helps the Malaysian seaport to face challenges in the maritime industry strategically and consistently to maintain economic growth and commercial value.