Lesson 3 Dangerous Goods: Learning Outcomes
Lesson 3 Dangerous Goods: Learning Outcomes
Dangerous goods
Learning outcomes
By the end of this topic you should be able to;
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3.1. Packaged Dangerous Goods
Dangerous goods can be defined as any substances whether packaged or in
bulk, in-tended for carriage or storage and have properties coming under the
classes listed in the International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code.
Packaged Dangerous Goods are dangerous cargo contained in a receptacle
packages, portable tank and freight container or in a vehicle. Dangerous
Goods classified under IMDG Code are as follows:
• Explosives
• Gases
• Oxidizing substances
• Organic peroxides
• Radioactive material
• Corrosive substances
It is evident that the improper packing of above listed goods can cause
serious threat to a lot of factors. (Armstrong,2007)
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Packing of cargo
Packing is the process of assembling items into a unit with necessary
protection coatings and marking , it plays an important role in minimizing
the risk associated with the nature of the goods(Willinger,1981). Packing
is done for the following reasons
• Climatic condition.
Packing is either done by the shipper himself or by a third-party and naturally the
responsibility falls on him for the comprehensive and relative legislation which
must be observed during the preparation for transportation (Wong, 1976)
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Two incompatible articles when kept together may result in undue hazard in case of
leakage, spillage or if an accident occurs .This is where importance of segregation or
separation takes place. Segregation is obtained by maintaining certain distances
between incompatible goods or separating by one or more steel bulkheads or decks
between them, or a combination thereof. For the purpose of segregation, dangerous
goods having certain similar chemical properties should be grouped together in
segregation groups (Williams, 1999) Stowage into containers must be properly and
carefully done, with proper bracing, blocking and dunnage inside. It’s important that
stowage plan for dangerous goods should ensure that only valid positions are used
for dangerous goods when planning and loading For protecting the dangerous goods
from adverse weather and from the collision impact it is better to stow goods in
outboard stacks. Dangerous goods plan must be properly filled with information
pertaining to the dangerous goods on board and this helps quick and easy location of
dangerous goods(Peermohamed,2002)
• Format, design and colour of the labels should follow the standards
as per the Dangerous Goods Code.
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• Requirements for inner package marking are different from standard
marking and for packages the standard marking must include:
– UN Number
– Class label for each class of dangerous goods in package
• Markings must pass tests for legibility, water resistance, colour fastness
and staying affixed (stickers are commercially available) (Armstrong,2007)
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document and should provide additional information and documentation as spec-
ified. The dangerous goods transport document may be in any form, provided it
contains all the information required by the IMDG Code.( Özbek, 2008)
Source:UKOOA 2002
The cargo will only be accepted if all the above steps have been taken.
Failure to comply with any of the above steps will result in rejection.
According to IMDG code following details should be included in the documentation
• UN number on goods
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safety or where the goods are insufficiently protected. Based on these notions, it has
been said that there are no common carriers of dangerous goods.(Hameed,1996)
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LESSON 4
Warehousing packaging & packing
Learning outcomes
By the end of this topic you should be able to;
Introduction
Warehouse can play a key role in the integrated logistics strategy and its build-ing
and maintaining good relationships between supply chain partners. Warehousing
affects customer service stock-out rates and firm’s sales and marketing success. A
warehouse smoothens out market supply and demand fluctuations. When supply
exceeds demand, a demand warehouse stores products in anticipation of customers
requirements when Demand exceeds supply the warehouse can speed product
movement to the customer by performing additional services like marking prices,
packaging products or final assembling etc.
Warehousing can be defined as a location with adequate facilities where
volume shipments are received from production center, which are then
broken down into particular order and shipped onwards to the customer.
Warehousing is an integral part of any logistics system. The warehouse is
a link between producer and customer
Out-bound warehouse help consumers buy on demand without a near4by
production plant warehousing cost are about 10% of total integrated
logistics costs for most companies.
2. Public Warehousing
3. Contract Warehousing
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Private Warehousing
A firm producing or owning the goods owns private warehouses. The
goods are stored until they are delivered to a retail outlet or sold. Potential
advantage of using a private warehouse is the ability to maintain physical
control over the facility, which allows mangers to address loss, damage,
and theft. When not in use they can rent it out.
The construction and maintenance of private warehousing can be extremely costly.
All the expenses have to be carefully analyzed and evaluated. These are:
1. Fixed expenses and building and land acquisition costs which are high;
3. The costs of salaries of staff required for peak activity periods which can be
very high since retrenchment during slack periods may not be possible;
4. Extra payment to be made for work on Saturday and Sundays and holidays;
5. Generator and other services charges are required to be taken into account.
Advantages
The advantages and disadvantages of private warehousing as against
those of public warehousing are:
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2. There is less likelihood of error in the case of private warehousing
since the company’s products are handled by its own employees who are able
to identify the products of their own company better.
Public Warehousing
A public warehouse rents space to individuals or firm needing storage, some
pro-vide wide array of services including packaging, labeling, testing,
inventory, maintenance, local delivery, data processing and pricing.
All the foregoing cost factors operate in public warehousing as well. But in public
warehousing, the expenses are distributed over several other consignments of other
clients. In most instances therefore can render better service with greater flexibility
for the user. A company running a private warehouse will have to compare costs
incurred with the total figure for the complete service through public warehousing.
Advantages
1. It is generally less expensive and more efficient.
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Contract Warehousing
Contract warehousing is a specialized form of public warehousing. In addition
to warehousing activities such warehousing provides a combination of
integrated logistics services. Thus allowing the leasing firm to concentrate on
its specialty. They provide customized services, eg. Value Added Services.
2. Break Bulk: As the name suggests, the warehouse in this case serves the
purpose of receiving bulk shipments through economical long distance transportation and
breaking of these into small shipments for local delivery. This enables small shipments in
place of long distance small shipments.
3. Cross Docking: This type of facility enables receipt of full shipments from a
number of suppliers, generally manufacturers, and direct distribution to different
customers without storage. As soon as the shipments are received, these are allocated
to the respective customers and are moved across to the vehicle for the onwards
shipments to the respective customers at these facilities. Smaller shipments
accompanying these full shipments are moved to the temporary storage in these
facilities awaiting shipments to the respective customers along with other full
shipments.
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4. Product Mixing: Products of different types are received from different
manufacturing plant or sources in full shipment sizes. These products are mixed at
these warehouses into right combination for the relevant customers as per their
warehouses and continuously provided for the product mixture shipments requiring
these.
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tions requires intermediate storage of materials required for the
subsequent operation.
Advantages of Warehousing
Warehousing offers many advantages to the business community. Whether it
is industry or trade, it provides a number of benefits which are listed below.
• Protection and Preservation of goods - Warehouse provides
necessary facilities to the businessmen for storing their goods when they are not
required for sale. It provides protection to the stocks, ensures their safety and
pre-vents wastage. It minimizes losses from breakage, deterioration in quality,
spoilage etc. Warehouses usually adopt latest technologies to avoid losses, as
far as possible.
• Regular flow of goods- Many commodities like rice, wheat etc. are produced
during a particular season but are consumed throughout the year. Warehousing ensures
regular supply of such seasonal commodities throughout the year.
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• Useful for small businessmen- Construction of own warehouse requires
heavy capital investment, which small businessmen cannot afford. In this situation,
by paying a nominal amount as rent, they can preserve their raw materials as well as
finished products in public warehouses.
• Reduces risk of loss - Goods in warehouses are well guarded and preserved.
The warehouses can economically employ security staff to avoid theft, use insecticides for
preservation and provide cold storage facility for perishable items. They can install fire-
fighting equipment to avoid fire. The goods stored can also be insured for compensation in
case of loss.
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same, the Square Root Law estimates the extent to which aggregate
inventory needs will change as a firm increases or reduced the number of
stocking location. In general, the greater the number of stocking locations, the
greater the amount of inventory needed to maintain customer service levels.
Conversely, as inventories are consolidated into fewer stocking locations,
aggregate inventory levels will decrease. The extent to which these changes
will occur is understood through application of the square root law.
The Square Root Law states that: “the total safety stock inventories in the
future number of facilities can be approximated by multiplying the total
amount of inventory at existing facilities by the square root of the number
of future facilities divided by number of existing facilities”.
Therefore
Where
N1 = Number of existing facilities
N2 = Number of future facilities
X1 = Total inventory in existing facility
X2 = Total inventory in future facility
Example
A company presently distributing 40,000 units of product to its customer from eight
facility location throughout India is located at A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H. The
company is evaluating an opportunity to consolidate its operation into two facilities.
Square Root Law we will find the total amount of inventory in the two future facility.
Solution
Here,
X1 = 40,000
N1 = 8
N2 = 2
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Transportation costs initially decreases with increasing number of warehouses. This
is due to the transportation economics obtained by having large-volume long-range
transportation from consolidation warehouses and short-range small-volume trans-
portation from break-bulk warehouses. However, as the number of warehouses
increases beyond a certain value, the transportation costs starts increasing due to
large number of transportation trips in – between the larger numbers of warehouses.
Inventory costs continuously increases with the increasing number of warehouses
beyond the increased space available needs to be utilized and firms increase the
commitment of inventory at these warehouses beyond those actually needed. Tran-
sit inventory costs continuously decrease with the increased number of warehouses
due to the shorter transportation times between the larger number of warehouses.
The warehousing costs increase with more warehouses due to the maintenance and
facility costs associated with each warehouse. For the same space, a single ware-
house incurs less warehousing cost than two warehouses.
The increasing number of warehousing leads to increasing customer
service levels, thus, decreasing customer dissatisfaction cost.
Market-positioned warehouses
Market-positioned warehouses are located near to the customers and markets (point
of product consumption) with the objective of serving them. These generally have a
large variety and low volume of items to service local requirements. Such ware-
houses reduce cost by providing place utility. A Market-positioned warehouses
functions as a collection point for the products of distant firms with the resulting
accumulations of product serving as the supply source for retail inventory
replenishment. This approach allows large and cost-effective shipments from the
manufacturer with lower-cost, local transportation providing service to individual
retailers.
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Market-positioned warehouses may be owned by the firm or the retailer
(private warehouses), or they may be an independent business providing
warehouses service for profit (public).
Manufacturing-Positioned Warehouses
Manufacturing positioned warehouse are located near to the manufacturing
facilities in order to support manufacturing on the inbound side and to
facilitate assortment-creation and shipping on the outbound side. Improve
customer services and manufacturing support achieved through type of
warehouse which acts as the collection point for products needed in filing
customer orders and material needed for manufacturing.
Intermediately-Positioned Warehouses
Intermediately-positioned warehouses are those located between manufacturing
and market-position warehouses. These help in consolidation of assortments for
shipments from different manufacturing facilities. A firm may have many
manufacturing plant located, for economic reasons, near the sources of raw
material. Under these conditions the cost-effective warehouse may be at some
intermediate point. A few of the factors governing the warehouse locations are:
• Availability of services
• Land cost
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footage or cubic space. Some of the most important factors affecting the
size of warehouse are
2. Size of market
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equipment, space and information. Whatever layout the company finally
selects for its warehouse it is vital that all available space be utilized as fully
and efficiently as possible.
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