ECONOMIC JUSTIFICATION OF STEVEDORING ACTIVITY DEVELOPMENT IN UKRAINE ON THE BASIS OF QUEUEING AND STORAGE THEORIES

Abstract

Topicality. Recent economic-organizational transformations in maritime branch of Ukrainian economics influenced the essential changes in the system of its management, leads up to essential decreasing of state regulation of transportation and transshipment of cargo, to appearance of set independent shipping and stevedoring companies of ports terminals. This fact leads up to the national competition environment�s formation and to increasing the competition in international transportation market. Under these circumstances the Ukrainian enterprises of maritime sector of economics, in particular stevedoring companies of ports terminals are subjected to influences of market�s instability and are faced to necessity of effective regulation of their development from the side of Ministry of infrastructure of Ukraine. One of the main specific features of competition struggle among operators of port�s terminals is necessity of their participation in logistic supply chains of cargo delivery what can strengths their competitive position in the market of stevedoring service. Under modern conditions the successful stevedoring activity is determined by ability of the companies to exchangeable market�s conditions adaptation. Variability of market�s environment in the sphere of stevedoring service demands application of new methods of management of cargo transshipment which must be based on adaptation and flexibility not only managerial decisions but organization structure of stevedoring company itself. When developing the managerial decisions related to port�s infrastructure development it is necessary to take into account the uncertainty of market�s environment and force major factors that are inherent to maritime business, as well. That is why for increasing the effectiveness of Ukrainian stevedoring companies activities the corresponding researches are needed that will allow to develop the conceptual foundations of this activities in the sea ports of regions and corresponding methodical aids that can be used by ports operators and administrations of Ukrainian commercial sea ports in their everyday activity. Despite of the existence of number theoretical and applied works in the field of stevedoring companies activity and economic justification of projects of creation or reconstruction of port�s terminals there exists a lot of unsolved problems concerning methodological foundation of priority directions of ports infrastructure elements development under market�s uncertainty, risks and competition. Aim and tasks. The aim of article is development of method for optimal distribution of investments among port terminals in a region under random fluctuation of cargo flows and competition taking into account the method NPV � Net Present Value � for evaluation of economic results of stevedoring activities. Research results. The methodical approach is proposed for optimal distribution of investments determination directed on creation of berths for terminals of seaports located in same region. It is based on results of queuing and storage theories. The ports terminals are presented as the multi-channel queuing systems of the Poisson-Erlang type with warehouses for cargo storage. Besides, it is supposed that rates of Poisson streams of ships are the non-decreasing functions of number of berths of corresponding terminal. The method of mean current profit of terminal�s operator determination is proposed (for steady-state regime) and discrete optimization problem for number of berths determination is formulated under restricted investment fund. Conclusions. The method of optimal distribution of investments directed on development of ports terminals of a region is proposed. It may be a tool for decision making for State Administration of Sea Ports. Its application allow to increase the effectiveness of terminal operators activity under random fluctuation of cargo flows and taking into account possibility of their ruin. The method proposed id based on results of queueing and storage theories. In the further researches in this direction it is interesting, from theoretical and practical points of view, its generalization for the case of competition among terminals operators.