Exposing Unproductive Time in a Port Call

1. Vessel arrival

The vessel first approached from the east, and its timeline tells a revealing story. Upon arrival (1), the vessel couldn’t head straight to the berth. Instead, it was forced to anchor offshore, simply waiting. Why? The terminal was occupied. This is the first clear instance of wasted time: valuable operational hours spent doing nothing, because a berth was not yet available.

2. Waiting at berth

When the vessel eventually moved to the quay (2), the were still more delays ahead. It reached the northern bay, only to wait again. This time, the holdup was due to the unavailability of cargo handling gangs. Once more, the vessel was stuck, idle at berth, unable to unload or load cargo. From a business perspective, every idle hour translates to financial loss, not only for the shipping line but also for the port and its stakeholders.

3. Drifting

Then came perhaps the most striking delay: the vessel left the berth and drifted back out to the eastern side of the port, where it waited for more than 24 hours (3). In this entire period of time, the vessel wasn’t sailing, nor was it engaged in cargo operations. And again, this was time lost with no value created. In some of our research, this unproductive time can go up to 72 hours (!).

4. More waiting at departure

Even on departure, delays continued. The vessel couldn’t leave promptly because a bunker barge was still alongside (4). This seemingly minor detail had big implications. Not only was the vessel delayed, but the terminal remained occupied and unable to do cargo operations during this period. That’s double the waste, on both the vessel and port terminal sides.