Business process management in the port sector: a literature review

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to review the application of business process management (BPM) in the port sector. Its objective is to understand whether BPM principles are applied in the port sector, the role of the procedural factor in port performance evaluation and whether electronic data interchange systems have been used for process management purposes. Design/methodology/approach The objective of this research is to conduct a critical review of existing academic literature in the domain of BPM and its application in the ports sector. This paper assessed more than a hundred recent publications, from key journals in the domains of port economics, BPM and information technology. The two principle platforms used are the online databases of the World Bank Group and the University of Antwerp. Findings Academic literature reviewed reveals a partial application of BPM in the port and maritime sector. BPM related research is conducted via the utilization of modeling algorithms or optimization and simulation tools. There exists evidence that electronic data interchange (EDI) data extracted from EDI platforms can be used to model inter-organizational business processes in several industries. Yet, to the best of the author’s knowledge, no research investigates Port Community System (PCS) or single window (SW) data utilization for BPM purposes, although PCS and SW benefits are well documented. Port performance is largely assessed based on the production theory, and limited number of studies use elements of procedural efficiency as variables for their analysis. Originality/value The holistic application of BPM has been researched in numerous industries but in the port sector. This paper constitutes the first section of an original research study to define key components, assumptions and constraints for developing a comprehensive BPM framework in the port sector.

The Role of Port Authority in Port Governance and Port Community System Implementation

“…The main goals when developing a PCS are, most of all, increasing data quality, paperwork reduction, facilitating data connection between various stakeholders, improving and supporting operations across the entire transport and logistics chain [38]. While both port performance and services provided to stakeholders can be increased by the implementation of the PCS, Saragiotis [39] argues that the effect of the implementation of the PCS is higher for the port authority than for the stakeholders.…”

Measuring performance of government-supported drug warehouses using DEA to improve quality of drug distribution

“…DEA is the most prevalent and popular quantitative approach for performance measurement because of accuracy (Shirouyehzad et al , 2017 and Ho et al , 2010). In last few years, numerous studies have evaluated the performance and efficiency of various organization by using DEA approach such as insurance companies (Jaloudi, 2019), port (Saragiotis, 2019), educational institutional and universities (Tho, 2019), banking industry (Adeabah et al , 2019), motorcycle assembly company (Restrepo and Villegas, 2019), wine firms (Bashiri Behmiri et al , 2019), gas company and petrochemicals (Kaviani et al , 2019), energy (Jalali Sepehr et al , 2019), retail services (Cruz et al , 2019), PPP model (Bao et al , 2019), leather industry (Gupta et al , 2019), hotels (Rahman et al , 2019), iron and steel industry (Haider and Mishra, 2019), construction sectors (Gao et al , 2019), airport (Keskin and Köksal, 2019), dairy (Mareth et al , 2019), health care, hospital and pharmaceutical Mahajan et al , 2014) and so on. Each study differs in its scope, decision-making units (DMUs) and variables.…”

Group-specific business process improvements via a port community system: the case of Rotterdam

“…Information technology (IT) is a crucial element that enables organisations to achieve BPI and make their operations and supply chains more efficient (Davenport and Short 1990;Adesola and Baines 2005;Rosemann and Vom Brocke 2015). In recent years, the ongoing digital transformation occurring in many industries has offered remarkable technology-based opportunities for the improvement of business processes (G€ olzer and Fritzsche 2017;Vial 2019;Saragiotis 2019). Among the various technological options, a dominant role has been played by digital platforms (Nyl en and Holmstr€ om 2015; Fatorachian and Kazemi 2018;Frank, Dalenogare, and Ayala 2019), which grant firms access to a shared information system (IS) by simultaneously addressing and integrating the interdependent processes of the various platform adopters.…”

“…The PCS acts, therefore, as an information-sharing platform for all the stakeholders of a port ecosystem. Despite the growing attention paid by scholars and practitioners to PCS, there are still various gaps in empirical research regarding the BPI achieved via this type of platform, such as the exploitation of PCS data (Saragiotis 2019). In particular, ports are logistical and operational ecosystems in which a large and heterogeneous set of stakeholders interact and implement a variety of articulated and interconnected business operations and processes (Parola, Satta, and Caschili 2014).…”

“…The present article contributes to the extant literature pertaining to PCS (Aydogdu and Aksoy 2015;Carlan, Sys, and Vanelslander 2016;Saragiotis 2019;Di Vaio and Varriale 2020) by exploring in detail the various types of benefits and BPIs achieved by each main group of port stakeholders (agents, terminal operators, and so on) through using this digital platform. The research question of the article is: How do the various key groups of port stakeholders gain groupspecific BPIs via a Port Community System?…”