1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140 
Problem workshops
Page 15
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
• R and M (Management Consultants) Ltd hopes to run a series of three-day distribution problem workshops in 1971. The company—part of the W. H. Smith and Son group—has arranged several week-long courses in modern warehouse management and has noticed that many firms engaged in distribution have first-class operations except only for one or two problem areas.
The distribution problem workshops will allow participating firms to submit problems relating to wholesale or retail activities. Problem areas likely to be explored under the wholesale heading include: warehouse layout and management organization; management information; stock control; personnel organization, training and remuneration; throughput control; cost control and performance ratios; marshalling, loading and dispatch.
At the workshops, problems of participating firms will be analysed and working programmes constructed to bring together in syndicates delegates with similar problems. The cost of the scheme, given sufficient support, should not be greater than £120 per delegate, excluding travel and accommodation.
One-week courses on Modern Distribution Management will be held from February Ito 5 and May 3 to 7 1971, and on Modern Warehouse Management from January 18 to 22 and April 19 to 231971.
Full details from: R and M (Management Consultants) Ltd, 41 Duke Street, Manchester Square, London W. IM 5DG.
• Many exhibitors at the Munich Container Exhibition (CM October 30) remarked on the number of visitors from behind the Iron Curtain. Now a report from a Moscow news agency on the use of containers in Russia makes interesting reading.
The number of containers, mainly with gross weights of 3 and 5 tons, now used in the USSR is close on a million. But, due to the strict observance of the State standard established in 1935, the diversity of types so characteristic of other countries has been avoided.
Container traffic is moved by some 50,000 railway wagons—the Soviet railways have more than 1000 centres for handling containers—and also by great numbers of road vehicles. Containers are carried on conventional flat cars and gondolas, and handling operations are served by the usual mechanized means. They are used mainly to carry consumer goods—perfumery, footwear, clothes, textiles, tobacco---and compact machine tools, spares, etc.
During the past 10 years, the agency claims, containers saved the country some 800 million roubles.
The USSR expects to increase the number of container movements in the near future to 50m and later to 100m. Work is now under way to develop large-tonnage containers and specialized means of conveyance for them, including flat cars, ships and motor vehicles, and also modern handling equipment of greater lifting capacity. Estimates suggest that special trains with large capacity containers would be economic on inter-city routes. Container transit carriage from Western Europe to 'Middle East countries is envisaged.
Five-ton containers will continue in use for transits to remote areas in the USSR.
Computers and operational research techniques are used for container train and wagon marshalling. The methods enable the most economical route to be selected with fair distribution of operating costs between railway stations and shippers.
The introduction of the optimum marshalling plan for container wagons has yielded considerable savings. Despite transits of 1500 km on average, the turn-round rate of each container is more than 30 times a year.
Also important is the regulation of the container fleet. Since the flow of goods is not uniform, certain points have an excess of containers. Computers record empty containers and dispatch them so as to reduce empty runs to a minimum, while at the same time meeting cargo-carrying requirements. Linear programming methods are used.
A computer programme has now been evolved to ensure the optimum distribution of wagons among container points with minimum runs of cranes in loading and unloading operations, with utilization of road collection and delivery vehicles.
To cope with the complex tasks associated with the progress of container carriage, specialized information systems are being established in the USSR both on the railways and on other kinds of transport.
Conventional cargo ships, suitably modified, deliver consumer goods in containers of 3 and 5 tons gross weight to areas of northern Europe, the coast of Siberia, the Arctic and the Far East. Such shipping is also carried out in the Baltic Sea.
The USSR has recently begun shipping goods in large-tonnage containers, mainly to foreign ports. The Murmansk Shipping Administration has organized the delivery of goods in 20-,ton containers on its regular routes from European countries to Canada. Large-tonnage containers are also being used on routes from the Black Sea to Canada, Japan-Nakhodka (Far East) and Riga-Rostok (German Democratic Republic).
The USSR Ministry of the Merchant Marine plans to increase such shipping several-fold in the next 10 years. For this purpose construction of special container vessels capable of accommodating 200 20-ton containers has begun. Further plans provide for building container vessels of up to 12,000 tons deadweight.
The sea ports of the Baltic, Black Sea and the Far East are building special piers equipped with the latest handling machinery to work large-tonnage containers.