Presentation at Freight & Logistics Forum

Written by Gesine Stück  |  Tuesday, 22 September 2009  | 

Gavin Roser of our NMU partner Pantrak presented the scope of the Northern Maritime University to the Management Committee of the European Freight Leaders & Logistics Leaders Forum in Brussels on Friday 18th September.

The European Freight and Logistics Leaders Forum (F&L) is an international non-profit association composed of more than eighty members who take an important and active part in the use, development, harmonisation and modernisation of multimodal freight transport systems in Europe. F&L members are public and private persons and entities established in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Italy, (The) Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

NMU-Joint Modul “Intermodal Freight Transport” started

Written by Gesine Stück  |  Friday, 18 September 2009  | 

The “Intermodal Freight Transport” (IFT) module has started as full scale test (7,5 ECTS). lt is delivered during September and October at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. This module was developed in cooperation with Jacobs University Bremen within the frame of the INTERREG IVB-project Northern Maritime University.

The IFT module, consisting of five module elements, each module element comprises of 1.5 ECTS, deals with intermodal door to door transport involving water transport as one of the modes. Most attention will be paid to the sea-inland intermodal combinations, but other combinations will be covered as well. The module focuses on strategic and operational aspects of intermodal transports in a cross disciplinary approach, mainly from the actors’ and the systems’ perspectives. Actors in this context are all important organisations involved in the door to door transport chains.

The module contains one module element of e-learning (Module Element 2) delivered by Jacobs University Bremen and it is used as an elective course in the MSc programme "Logistics and Transport Management" at the University of Gothenburg.

The audience is composed of varied disciplines:

• 10 MSc students from our own programme
• 2 MSc students from Chalmers University of Technology
• 4 PhD students in logistics and transport management
• 1 PhD student in economic history
• 2 participants from industry (aiming for university credits), one from Norway and one from Sweden.

The Module Elements (ME) in detail:

ME one: Introduction to intermodal transport

• Reasons for intermodal transports from Governments’, shippers’ and carriers’ perspectives
• Intermodal freight markets and their characteristics
• The logistics properties of international supply chains
• Shippers’ need for transport quality
• The role of intermodal transports in national and supra national transport policy
• Organisations such as shipping lines, other vessel operators, railway companies, road carriers, ports, inland terminals and intermodal transport  coordinators and their roles in intermodal transport systems

ME two: Intermodal transport technologies (in e-learning)

Equipment

• Load units with emphasis on containers and trailers

• Modularisation below load unit level for optimal utilisation of capacity

• Handling equipment for sea-land combinations

• Road and railway vehicles

• Sea vessels and vessels for inland water-ways

• Problems of interoperability

• Information systems and IT for intermodal transport

Intermodal transport infrastructure

• Roads and railway tracks and their limitations
• Sea ports and inland ports
• Other terminals in intermodal transport systems
• Maritime corridors

Intermodal combinations – examples

• Road-rail combinations
• Road-sea and rail-sea combinations
• Combinations involving inland waterways
• Land-air combinations

ME three: Analytical frameworks for strategic intermodal system design

• Cost structures of intermodal transport system components
• The importance of scale economies and resource utilisation in intermodal transportation
• Analyses of freight demand and customers’ transport quality needs as a vantage point for intermodal system design
• Principles and methodology for competitive intermodal system design: Balancing cost efficiency, quality effectiveness and environmental efficiency.
• Analytical methods and softwares for intermodal transport system evaluation in cost, quality and environmental terms

ME four: Intermodal system management

• Quality performance and environmental impacts of intermodal transports compared with competing modes
• Vertical inter-organisational collaboration in marketing and transport production along the transport chain
• Horizontal collaboration for the consolidation of goods volumes. New initiatives
• Pricing, payment flows and contracting in intermodal transport chains

ME five: Intermodal legal and security frameworks

• Transport law and legal problems of intermodality
• Intermodal transport documentation
• Security and safety aspects of intermodality
• Risk and insurance related to intermodality

NMU transfer of lecturer

Written by Gesine Stück  |  Thursday, 03 September 2009  | 

The NMU partner Gothenburg University - School of Business, Economics and Law, is happy to welcome Miss Phanthian Zuesongdham, BA, MBA, coming from the NMU partner Jacobs University. As an associate lecturer for the e-learning module she will teach "Intermodal Freight Transports" during the months of September and October 2009. We are looking forward to a continuous good collaboration with Phanthian and it is an honor to have her here.

SME and Stakeholder Study Results

Written by Gordon Wilmsmeier  |  Wednesday, 02 September 2009  | 

The SME and Stakeholder Study was an initial exercise to identify the education needs of the maritime industry and maritime SMEs in particular.

Study design 

The study focused on five North Sea region countries: Denmark, Germany, Norway, Sweden and the UK, but did not look at these countries exclusively. The study was based on stakeholder views obtained from an internet-based questionnaire and combined them with findings from literature.

The key themes of the questionnaire were:

• The types of education used in the responding organisations
• The relevance of potential education offering types to SMEs and other stakeholders
• The respondent organisations’ future education needs

The responses were divided into three main groups: NMU Core countries, other countries and responses with unspecified origin. The first group accounted for two thirds of all responses. The shipping and transport sector is equally presented in comparison to the seaport and seaport related activities sector.

While only a small proportion of the respondents worked in Human Resource (HR) posts, the received responses were of high quality and showed an in depth knowledge and vision on the challenges, needs and the current situation of education in the maritime and port industry.

Clear preferences regarding relevant topics

The respondents expressed their clear preferences regarding relevant topics and knowledge areas, and the way of delivery and level of education.

Respondents were presented with the module topics and module elements of the NMU pilot courses:

• “Applied Maritime Transport Management”,
• "Maritime Transport and the Environment",
• “Logistics & Global Supply Chain Management",
• “Intermodality” and
• “International Maritime Human Resource Management”.

On average, respondents judged these as either attractive or very attractive in over 50% of cases.

Management, economics, and module elements related to intermodal transport management were rated highest in terms of attractiveness. The module “Ship Knowledge for Non-engineers” was also rated as attractive by over 50% of respondents, and no further module elements were named.

Consequently, NMU’s educational offerings should especially focus on shipping and multi-modal transport as well as the broad spectrum of commercial or facilitating activities related to seaports (e.g. port services, terminal service provision, and port terminal operations). The “human factor” in the maritime industry is also regarded as being of high importance.

The results show that slightly less than half of the respondents (48%) have a specific strategy for the education and training of their staff or a personnel development plan for them. An important finding is that only little more than 50% of all respondents are directly and continuously engaged with educational institutions or providers. However, in the cases where engagement does exist, the majority of respondents within the North Sea Region were satisfied with their current education provider.

This suggests that there is potential demand for the Northern Maritime University’s education offerings. However, this will be studied in further detail.

Most wanted: short term specialised courses 

While the transnational approach was welcomed by respondents, the array of responses also shows that a greatest common denominator approach will be needed in certain aspects when developing educational offerings due to country specific factors (e.g. when considering the time available for further education).

Respondents also expressed that they prefer blended learning offerings. The term “blended” also receives a further dimension as respondents expressed significant interest in courses that are a mix in terms of “location”, this being the university/department/institute on the one hand and in-house locations on the other.

Moreover, pure e-learning courses should not be discounted completely, as a small minority indicated that this is their most preferred way of receiving education. Here, efforts should be made to ensure that these results are reviewed and discussed in the relation to the NMU service product portfolio.

Short term specialised courses received the highest level of interest from respondents. This was complemented by the expression that current university and vocational courses should provide more “practical examples and references” and should be delivered by specialists in a particular field. Initial evidence is also given that Master as well as Bachelor level courses are the preferred options.

Further, two thirds of respondents viewed Northern Maritime University e-courses or partial e-courses with short sessions at weekends as a competitive offer, and that locating face-to-face sections of such courses in major transportation hub cities of Northern Europe (e.g. London, Hamburg, Copenhagen, and Oslo) would further contribute to their attractiveness.

However, a majority still disagreed or strongly disagreed that those full time e-learning courses and study programmes from internationally renowned institutions could be equivalent to a full-time study semester abroad. This might hint towards different perceptions of degrees from companies depending on the way these degrees were obtained. This aspect requires further research based on, e.g. the experiences with e-learning in other projects and content and format analysis of face-to-face, blended and pure e-educational offerings of other universities and private sector providers, such as, e.g. Lloyd’s Register.

Thinking about the current competencies and educational development policies of maritime firms and organisations, almost 50% of of the surveyed companies and organisations motivated their employees to participate in part-time education offerings or university business courses. Respondents indicated that they were willing to give employees 1 to 3 weeks per year to pursue such activities However, responses varied widely and secondary statistics indicate that working hours may also vary between (a) countries, (b) the sexes, and (c) management level personnel and ordinary staff.

Orientation towards the market

Finally, and perhaps most crucially, respondents were not yet necessarily convinced that the NMU idea will have the potential to improve maritime transport education compared with the current educational offerings. While on the one hand this result might be considered discouraging, it also points towards the fact that potential users need to be convinced, and that quality and experience are important to them. At this early stage of the project, with the educational offers still under development, it is hard to judge if the project will make a difference and be a competitive offer. The received responses must be monitored, something that will also allow for controlling the effect and perception of the educational offerings, once this data is available. The conclusion and message received by the NMU consortium is that the project needs to ensure that every aspect of its educational offerings are well-planned and oriented towards its market, so that it achieves the service and outcome quality that will ensure a positive mark on this aspect for the future.

In order to gain further insight beyond the initial evidence from the questionnaire, NMU is developing Delphi and Foresight exercises at national level. These exercises are the consequent succession since the application of these methodologies allows for a more detailed exploration of the underlying conditions, motivations and visions for the development of education offerings in the maritime sector. The exercises will also allow to engage with key stakeholders in a more in depth, continued and proactive manner.

For further information on the study please contact: Maria Anne Wagtmann ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Gordon Wilmsmeier ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ). 

Completion of the first diploma thesis within the NMU consortium

Tuesday, 25 August 2009  | 

The thesis, titled “International Maritime Human Resource Management onboard Ships”, covers the aspects of HRM for seafarers – from the regulatory framework to individual social or intercultural concerns – a maritime business manager should have knowledge about. Contents of the thesis will serve as input for the new module “International Maritime Human Resource Management” which will be available partly as e-learning material. To provide learners with complete all round competence regarding HRM, the University of Southern Denmark – who coordinates all work for the new module – is doing research on shore-based maritime HRM.

Matthias Hahn, NMU graduand, mentioned: “For me, it was a wonderful experience working together with and getting input from such experienced experts. Gavin Roser explained to me a vessel’s staff structure together with their chores and Willi Wittig commented parts of my thesis while Thomas Pawlik and Maria Anne Wagtmann provided me with valuable ideas for a thesis structure, just to name some examples. But whoever I asked within the NMU consortium was eager to help and support me. I am very thankful and really learned a lot – not only concerning “Human Resource Management onboard Ships, but also about teamwork within an EU project.”

The new module “International Maritime Human Resource Management” will be open for learners within the next months to come.

Source: NSB Niederelbe Schiffahrtsgesellschaft