This chapter is will show you an outline about our project. The theme of our team is "The BCP for port after earthquake disasters". In this report you can clear propose of our team and we will show you the tools that we used in the ALPS.
● What is BCP
First of all, you must clear the meaning of BCP. Business continuity planning (BCP) is "planning which identifies the organization's exposure to internal and external threats and synthesizes hard and soft assets to provide effective prevention and recovery for the organization, whilst maintaining competitive advantage and value system integrity". It is also called Business continuity Resiliency planning (BCRP). The logistical plan used in BCP is called a business continuity plan. The intended effect of BCP is to ensure business continuity, which is an ongoing state or methodology governing how business is conducted. (From Wikipedia, Business continuity planning) In plain language, BCP is working out how to stay in business in the event of disaster.
● BCP for Port system is
▲ Ports are important for Japnese economy
Japan boasts the world's second largest retail market, with a value exceeding US$1,124 billion (135 trillion yen, 2007). In addition to its size, the enormous influence of Japan's retail industry attracts global attention as being the origin of many Asian trends.
▲ Why the new system in good for Japan
As you know, Japan is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in the world. Other natural disasters such as typhoons also occur every year. Business in Japan requires a BCP (Business Continuity Plan) suited to these circumstances. The Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake was a good example to explain the importance of the BCP for ports. The Hanshin-Awaji earthquake was an earthquake that occurred on Tuesday, January 17, 1995, at 05:46 JST in the southern part of Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. It measured 6.8 on the Moment magnitude scale (USGS), and Mj7.3 (adjusted from 7.2) on JMA magnitude scale. The tremors lasted for approximately 20 seconds. The focus of the earthquake was located 16 km beneath its epicenter on the northern end of Awaji Island, 20 km away from the city of Kobe. Approximately 6,434 people lost their lives (final estimate as of December 22, 2005); about 4,600 of them were from Kobe. Among major cities, Kobe, with its population of 1.5 million, was the closest to the epicenter and hit by the strongest tremors. This was Japan's worst earthquake since the Great Kantō earthquake in 1923, which claimed 140,000 lives. It caused approximately ten trillion yen in damage, 2.5% of Japan's GDP at the time. Based on the average currency conversion rate over the following 500 days of 97.545 yen per USD, the quake caused $102.5 billion in damage. (From Wikipedia, Great Hanshin earthquake) From the numeral of the damage, we can believe that our project has the significant for a lot of countries like Japan. Though ALPS we use some tools to decision on the BCP for port. In this report we will explain the details of each tool. And talk about use those tools we taught the wisdom for our project, the IC chip system.
● Our team's suggestion: IC chip system
The IC Chip system, which can help the port to keep working after an earthquake disaster. Image of IC chip system is like the system which the subway ticket gate are using in Japan. When we pass the ticket gate of subway station, a lot of passengers are taking a card with green or pink, we called them SUICA or PASMO in Japanese. We take them and touch a part of gate, and the gate will receive the information of each passengers and request charge for riding. And we assume that the IC chip system for port is similar to the PASMO. The card will be put on the outside of containers and the transfer crane will be used as the gate to read the information.
▲ Process of the IC chip system
When an earthquake occurs, the control center is falling down and it cannot work. When a truck is going into the port, a staff is putting a IC chip on the container which is loaded on the truck. The IC chip is used for the container's yard plan, the weight and its storage plan. Then transfer crane which we put a infrastructure on it will read the information of the container. And save them in a memory stick. Then the staff will take the memory stick to the gate which near the gantry crane. Then the computer will know the information of this container and bring it to its destination.
▲ Benefits and the horizons with the IC chip system
The strong point of this system is that not only can it be used after a strong earthquake, it also works in usual operations. It will also use less staff than normal, so the port agency could use less human resources to run the port. Of course, it's a big project and the system will require quite a huge number of funds. Although the system is not cheap, the potential losses when the port cannot function can be amount to that caused by the Hanshin-Awaji earthquake. Hence for the business, for the safety of citizens and the port staff, I think you can agree with us that this system will be a good business for Japan and also other countries which are earthquake-prone.
● Tools that we used in teamwork
Though our project of IC chip system, we used some tools to analysis and resolve the problems, like scenario graph, Customer Value Chain Analysis, QFD, Cost Worth Analysis and so on. In this report we will introduce the each tool which we used in details.
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