Determining the effects of implementing IMO’s Hong Kong Convention’s requirements on the productivity of a ship recycling yard by using discrete event simulation

Abstract

ABSTRACT Ship Recycling (SR) is considered as a sustainable solution for ships which reach end-of-life (EOL). Generally, EOL ships are sent to SR yards located in developing countries. However, the health, safety and environmental conditions in these yards cause a big concern for the international community. As a result, new international regulations were developed, and SR yards will be required to meet those criteria defined by the regulators. To stay competitive in a more stringent regulatory framework, their production efficiency will become more important. This paper proposes a framework for SR yards to better understand the problems related to resource optimisation and define the gap between current regulations and the existing yards. The framework uses discrete event simulation to create the required evidence for optimising the production. This study demonstrates the framework can effectively identify problems, propose improvement measures, and conduct resource optimisation in an evidence-based manner.