MV EverGiven ship blocks Suez Canal and strains global supply chains ..

On Tuesday 23 March 2021, early morning in strong winds that gushed across the 193 km long Suez Canal, the lifeline of global maritime trade connecting Asia and Europe, MV EverGiven (pictured on the right) commissioned in 2018, with a capacity of 20,000 twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs) with a draught of 15.7 m, length 399.94 m and width 59 m was rocked in the canal and got itself wedged and stranded on the northern coast blocking passage of other ships. 

Simulation (click here) of what happened on the morning of Tuesday 23 March '21 in a portion of the 193 km long man-made 151 years old Suez Canal. Suez Canal accounts for 12% of all marine global trade and 30% global container traffic, connecting Red Sea and Mediteranean Sea, fully passing thru Egyptian territory.

Ships plying in this route between North Atlantic and Indian Ocean on average save almost 9000kms distance and 8-10 sailing days than going around Cape of Good Hope around tip of Africa ...

The 200,000 DWT (2,40,000 Tonnes Gross Tonnage) MV EverGiven plying under the banner of Taiwan based Evergreen Shipping line from Rotterdam, Holland to Asia got stranded, leading to a pileup of roughly 200 ships on either side, which could take couple of weeks for a recovery and millions of dollars. The cost incurred is only due to delay of delivery of goods and not material damage.

Ever Given is a Golden-class 200,000 T DWT container ship, among the largest container ships in the world, carrying about 20,000 (Twenty Foot Equivalent) TEU containers. It is owned by Shoei Kisen Kaisha, and time chartered and operated by Taiwanese container transportation and shipping company Evergreen Marine - wikipedia

The Suez Canal is an important man made waterway connecting the continents of Asia and Europe that reduces the travel distance between the two continents around Cape of Good Hope by almost 9000 kms and about 7-10  days of sailing. 

There are many other ships, at least two hundred of them that are caught in the Suez Canal (pic 4) and this is blocking the passage of goods from Asia to Europe and back. About $200 billion of India based merchandise was also involved.  The global oil prices will be the first to be affected. If the ships plan to reverse and go via the Cape of Good Hope, it is going to take another 10-12 days and fuel, increasing costs.

Among the solutions being proposed, emptying the ship of its 20,000 TEU containers and pulling it by tugs at high tide to help rescue it out of the canal banks where it has been caught looks possible.

If that is not practical, stronger tugs should pull it from the northern end to release it to the canal waters.  At present global maritime experts and engineers are breaking their head on how to tide over the crisis that has entered the sixth day by Sunday 28 March. One of the rescue efforts being planned is dredging on either side of the ship using 200ft long cranes.

The Dead Weight Tonnage DWT (weight of fuel, load, ballast, crew included) of the EverGiven is 200,000 T and net Tonnage is 100,000 T. Even if the 100,000 T cargo is emptied from the ship, trying to set free the stranded huge container ship is going to be a herculean task. About 40 ships get added daily to the 200 long queue of ships waiting for Suez Canal passage.

 

Time is of greatest concern here. Was it a pilot error, bad weather or engine failure that led to this mishap, it is still not clear. 

 

For the total 350 container ships expected to be stranded in the Suez waters in coming three days, their precious cargo of about $10 billion daily is getting delayed affecting availability, on time delivery and costs. Oil ships have also been stranded which may raise global oil prices this week or next, till oil supplies are restored.  

 

With about 20,000 ships passing through the canal annually, the Suez is the most valuable shipping lines in the world where almost $1 trillion worth goods get transported in the Asia Europe trade annually. The pile up is costing the world almost $3 billion daily, in terms of fuel, rent, delay etc. 

How is Suez Canal different from Panama Canal ? Click here ..

Click here for a case study on the Evergiven Suez Canal incident ..

George..

How can data create competitive advantage ?

In the modern world it is data that matters for any digital organisation to survive. Data gives it the fodder or fuel to work on. When this data becomes unique and difficult for others to copy or add value, the data gives great value to the organisation and gives it the undeniable competitive advantage.

If the value of this data does not hold for long, the competitive advantage can be lost, so can the rate at which the value deteriorates.

This write up tries to address this issue of how an organisation can use the data effectively to give it the competitive advantage over others and remain competitive in the market.

Data in large quantity can give indications of unheard of trends by Big Data analysis,  Large quantities or small quantities of data, it is important to understand how the value of this data appreciates or depreciates over time, leading to gaining or losing competitive advantage for an organistion.

While going through the article (click here) HBR of Jan '20 by Andrei Hagiu and Julian Wright, the competitive advantage created by data is analysed in detail.

1. Value added by customer data relative to the stand alone value of the offering - customer data is what adds value to any digital application. The more data gets added, if it can lead to more value for the organisation, the application can have competitive advantage over its competitors.

2. Rate at which the marginal value of the data enabled learning changes - if the rate at which the marginal value of the data added keeps decreasing at a slower rate, the competition will find it difficult to catch up.

3. Rate at which the relevance of the user data depreciates is low - if the data becomes obsolete fast, the application does not have any competitive advantage against its competitors, any competitor can come and disrupt the system

4. Is the data proprietary ? - if the data is proprietary and cannot be copied by competitors, the firm can remain in the competition for a longer period of time

5. Is it hard to imitate product improvements based on consumer data ? - if the product improvement based on consumer data, for eg. Google Maps analysing user density on road and hence diverting traffic to less dense traffic roads to reduce travel times being momentary, is hard to imitate by competitors, hence the competitive advantage can be maintained.

6. Does the user data help improve the product for other users ? - the network effect gives great value for all users, the app which networkds with more stakeholders thus offers more value than those which network with less number of stakeholders

7. How fast can insights of user data be added into the products or service ? - if the insights of user data can be incorporated into the product or service at a faster rate than the competitors, the organisation  can remain ahead of competition.

An organisation that has the strategy of retaining the competitive advantage over its competitors by the efficient use of data can lead the market and dominate it for a long time and give great value to its customers in the long run. 

George ..

Have world religions lost their relevance during Covid time ?

As of 24 March 2021, globally 2.73 million deaths related to Covid 19 virus have happened. (2,730,000). (Data comes from Wikipedia, government health ministries, The New York Times, and other authoritative sources, as attributed),

Of all the nations that have suffered badly, the top 5 are (total deaths in blue and WHO mortality rates, deaths per 100,000 population, in red)

United States (543 K, pop 329 million, 165 )

Brazil             (295 K, pop 213 million, 139 )

India              (160 K, pop 1370 million, 12 )

Russia           (93,812, pop 145 million, 65 )

France          (92,908, pop 68 million, 137 ).

Why did all our Gods ditch us during the past 12 months as to cause this misery on planet earth ? Is it because of their helplessness ?

Indians were praying, banging their plates and vessels on the roads to please the Gods but to no avail. India lost 160,000 people to the 80 nanometre Covid 19 virus.

People across the world have gone back to natural foods, vegetables, fruits and physical exercises to keep the body fit and healthy, besides practicing yoga, homeopathy and Ayurveda.

30,000 years ago, when the first worship to the unknown Gods and natural forces happened around the world till this day, we have depended too much on man-made Gods. And at the time of our greatest need, these same man-made Gods ditched us. 

With no guilt of having misled the flocks all this while, unashamed religious leaders are standing in the queue to get vaccinated against the virus. Why did this thing happen ? Who was tricking whom ? Have religions lost their relevance ?

Only Science which helped develop a vaccine could help humanity. Many versions and formulations of the vaccine are being used across the world to contain the virus.  With development of Science over the past millennia we got to know more about ourselves, our environment, the natural events and the mysteries around us. As long as the events around us  remained beyond our understanding and comprehension, it was good to hold on to a Supreme being. But as we have come a long way, 4560 million years since planet earth was formed, to know more about the world around us, we have come to know more about life and natural events and have become less dependent on the Supernatural being.

But some of our religions specifically Christianity still hold on in the hope of salvation and it keeps the flock together, lest the spiritual soldiers and workers lose their livelihood and hopes of extravagance and luxury. 

Religions have become areas of materialism and power, unqualified people play dirty politics and exploit the badly informed masses. It is high time we stop this petty politics resorted by a group of religious leaders on poorly informed believers under their control.

Religious leaders should also stop this public exploitation and come forward to make people aware of their rights, teach, practice and spread Science, show how Science in future can take the world together.

In fact, Yuval Noah Harari in his book Homodeus talks of Dataism and algorithms which will be holding people together (click here) and not Gods. Have Gods lost their identity and relevance ?

George 

How can we use water wisely ?

The infographic on the right gives an idea of the amount of water that is needed (water footprint) to get a kilogram of fruits, vegetables, butter, cheese, chocolates etc. The graphic tells us that tomato consuming 214 kgs for each kilogram is the least damaging and chocolate is the most damaging taking up almost 17,196 kgs of water for a kilogram of chocolate. 

An information of the water footprint of the different eatables helps us to decide what foods to promote and what to avoid. Water is  scarce resource on planet earth with just 3% being fresh water and most of it in the icebergs of the polar regions.

How can we use water wisely ? There are two ways by which we can use water wisely, First is to prevent wastage of water. The existing water resources will help us to conserve. Avoid water pipe breaks. The second is to innovate ways in which water is used, reducing the consumption etc.

Andrew Winston and Bill DSarni in HBR of Jan 2011 titled Innovation in Managing water (click here), mentions about the losses of water that happen in our daily lives. As per data from ITT a global water treatment and transporting company, it is said in US from where we have accurate data available on water distribution and consumption, daily there are 650 water mains breaking incidents happening across US resulting in losses of $2.6 billion a year. 1.7 trillion gallons of potable treated water is wasted yearly which is equivalent to the use of 68 million homes.

While human efforts at avoiding pipe breaks, pilferage etc is strictly being monitored across the world, only innovations can bring really brilliant uses and purification of water to the limelight. 

GE is one of the world pioneers in understanding the importance of bringing fresh water into our lives and is constantly trying to come up with innovative equipment and technology to use energy to purify water. With better technology, the energy to purify a fixed quantity of water will reduce.

What are the interesting innovations happening in water purification ?

• Aguavia developed a nano membrane that is 67% energy reduction and 50% cheaper. 
• Blackgold biofuels generates energy from waste water streams generating renewable energy resources from pollution liabilities
• FogBusters treats petroleum, biofuel and food processing wastewater “better, faster, cheaper, cleaner and greener” while capturing the FOG (fat, oil and grease) to make into biodiesel.
• NLine Energy, Inc. converts wasted energy found in water transmission and distribution systems into renewable energy.
• Puralytics, uses photochemical processes work to break down or remove contaminants from water.
• Water Resources Management Co. helps water utilities realize the full benefits of their investments in advanced meter reading, system control and asset management.

The basic purpose of this article is to stress that as much as prevention of water wastage, developing innovative methods to clean impure water is necessary if we are to survive in this world.

George

Why am I wary after reading Yuval Noah Harari's books ?

I do enjoy reading and writing, but Yuval Noah Harari's classic books, Sapiens, Homodeus and 21 ideas for the 21st century have really disturbed me. How could a barely forty year old history professor in 2011 in Tel Aviv have such a profound understanding of the past and insight into the future? Only the first two books of Harari are discussed here.

The first book of Harari, Sapiens gave an excellent account of the past 75,000 years of the planet earth, human evolution and how Homosapiens took over other human species like Neanderthal, Homoerectus etc.. 

In three stages covering the cognitive revolution from seventy five thousand years back to agricultural revolution about ten thousand years back and then to the scientific revolution spanning the past five hundred years, Homosapiens have successfully passed through these stages, the many events and reached this point in time looking promisingly into the future. 

Harari's second book Homodeus talks of what is in store for Sapiens for the next ten thousand years. It was Fear of the unknown that made us believe in Gods and religions, say from thirty thousand years back. In the future with enough complete knowledge of the world around us, unknown parameters have little influence over the algorithms that govern our daily life, data and information processing capability will decide our growth.

Dataism will continue to be the dominant faith and principle dominating human evolution. The data processing capability of physical artificial systems over natural biological systems will ensure the survival or decay of human civilization. Will it later lead to the domination of machines over man ?

The first two books look at human mind evolution until now and into the future for the next couple of thousand years. Though the picture into the future is a bit scary and fearful, a proper correct balanced understanding of what can happen from Harari's perspective gives us a feeling of some comfort and solace.

But can a different perspective of the future, like the influence of extra terrestrial intelligence (ETI), which is not discussed in the book, take us totally off track ? Only time can tell. 

George 

Role play on Kochi International airport challenges

This morning we did a role play on the challenges faced by Kochi International airport in its renewable energy drive in the MBA sem 2 operations class. 

Student Role play descriptions

 Scenario 1

One of the busiest airports in India in terms of international traffic, Cochin International Airport Limited (CIAL) runs fully on solar energy. This airport has emerged as the pioneer in embracing sustainability. The Cochin International Airport grabbed global attention during the devastating Kerala floods, as it had to be shut down for 15 days in a row. 

We, a group of three students from ll Semester, Operations Management (Batch 2020-22) performed a role play on a case study based on Cochin Airport. The problem which we needed to cater to was “Climate change and the threat of floods pose an existential threat to Cochin international airport”. The roleplay was done in the form of 3 stakeholders; Customer, Employee, and Management. 

The first part of the roleplay consisted of what problems could Cochin International Airport encounter with their solar panels in times of changing climatic conditions and floods due to heavy rainfalls. 

It started with the customer enquiring to the employees of the airport whether it would be a safe idea to travel to and fro from CIAL during extreme rainy seasons as it could affect the airport that runs entirely on solar power, in a bad way.  

The customer inquired whether the airport was well equipped to handle the heavy rainfall and whether its solar panels could sustain the functioning of the airport. The employee listened to the customer and made sure to take this issue up with the management so that the customer could be better educated about the entire running of the airport. 

After a brainstorming session, we came up with certain solutions to the problem. A few of the ideas are listed below-

•    Solar Panels generate electricity by absorbing photons from sunlight. On a cloudy day, the photons particles are less, this could be substantiated by increasing the number of solar installations to cope up with such vagaries of nature and ensure uninterrupted energy supply.

•    Installation of lightning rods to prevent any potential damage to the solar panel by lightning strikes. We also proposed that there might be a way to convert lightning into a usable form of energy which could be uncovered through research work.

•    Installation of the Solar Panels on steep roof infrastructure with panel sealing would help mitigate the issues of damage by waterlogging.

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Scenario 2 : Cochin International Airport Case Study / Role Play

The challenge given to our team was that there was shortage of power/electricity at the airport and at the same time there was a problem with the availability of land for installation of further solar panels.

Through the method of role play we were able to analyze the problem through the perspective of not just one but multiple stakeholders of the organization (airport).

We came up with solutions based on the details and scenarios mentioned in the case.

Our proposal was to initially stop supplying excess electricity that is produced, to the state government and use it for the purpose airport operations itself. This was obviously a short-term solution.

For the long term, we came up with a plan to increase the area of the airport in order to install new solar panels and also for the purpose of making optimum utilization of the already existing space, we suggested the installation of solar panels on the roof.

In order to compensate the owners of the lands that would be bought for the purpose, apart from the price of the land, we would also offer them employment in solar panels maintenance related tasks in the airport.

Another alternative for the long term is that we can work on harnessing electricity from the tidal energy, which is also a sustainable approach.

During the class, we enacted out the situation and took into consideration various stakeholders like customer, airport management staff, airport management authority, a representative from the government aviation ministry.

We were able to understand the case much more and in in more depth while we discussed how the problem and the solution could be enacted out in the role play.

It was a good learning experience!

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The above are two write ups by the students on the Kochi airport role play.

The learning was simply great ..

George..

Why do EVs have a higher range in city driving than highway driving ?

It is interesting to know why EVs have a higher range in city driving than highway driving - normal logic tells us that frequent acceleration and deceleration wastes power and energy, but frequent deceleration in the city leads to the process of regeneration that charges the battery resulting in an improved mileage. 

In highway driving driver maintains a constant speed, rarely decelerates and hence battery is not recharged ..

https://www.autocarindia.com/auto-features-amp/why-evs-have-a-higher-range-in-the-city-and-not-the-highway-420208