C.A. Pérez-Labajos

Spending pattern of the recreational maritime sector and its impact on employment: the case of Cantabria, Spain

Information about the spending patterns of recreational craft users is of great interest, both to the public and the private maritime sectors. Firstly, spending patterns can guide operators and businesses working in the sector in planning strategies based on types and volumes of trade. Moreover, an awareness of their impact on the various economic macro-magnitudes might persuade governments to promote certain activities. After elaborating a user profile for the Autonomous Community of Cantabria, Spain, this paper determines the spending patterns and their effects on regional employment. This activity shows several intersectorial relations in the generation of employment, especially with the disadvantaged economic sectors.

Reverse Supply Chain Management – Modeling Through System Dynamics

Supply Chain Management (SCM) is one of the disciplines of Operations Management that has developed the most over the last few years. Within Supply Chain Management, Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) is a relatively young area which has great prospects for the future, due to the increasing deterioration in the environment, the shortage of material resources, the overfilling of rubbish dumps, the increase in pollution levels, the requirements of the legislation and the pressures of consumers ever more aware of the environment. One of the areas of most interest in the study of GSCM is Reverse Logistics. Many experts have adopted the slogan of the three Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) to promote environmental awareness in the production process. Reprocessing is a combination of the three Rs in one same activity (Ferrer 2001). Examples of items that can be directly reused without prior repair (except for cleaning and a minimum maintenance) are returnable packaging like bottles, pallets, and containers. In some businesses, customers have the legal right to return products purchased within a specific space of time. In these cases, the money is refunded in whole or in part and the product can be resold if it is of sufficient quality and if there is still demand for it (Mostard, Teunter 2006). Personal computers can be reused by replacing their hard disks, processors, by adding extra memory or a modem for internet, and even screens, keyboards and memories can be sold on to a toy company (Inderfurth, de Kok & Flapper 2001). The packaging returned to companies is generally reused. Pallets and containers can often be restored and returned for reuse (Rogers, Tibben-Lembke 1999). The goal of repair is to restore a product that has failed to make it work properly again with a slight loss of quality. Some examples are household appliances, industrial machinery and electronic equipment. Recycling involves the recovery of material without maintaining the original structure of the product. Examples of recyclable materials are paper, glass and plastics. Reprocessing retains the identity of the original product with the aim of making the product “like new” again by disassembling, upgrading and replacing the appropriate parts. Examples of items that can be reprocessed are airplanes, machine tools and photocopying-machines.

Reduction in CO 2 emissions in RoRo/Pax ports equipped with automatic mooring systems

Faced with the unavoidable reality of the emission of pollutant gases by vessels both while sailing and when performing in-port manoeuvres, the international community has devised an extensive set of rules to limit greenhouse gas emissions and the emission of other pollutants which are bad for our health. In order to make these reductions in the emissions, the areas addressed are the engine regime or speed control, the quality of the fuel used, the state of conservation of the vessel and its hull or the time taken to perform the manoeuvres of mooring and unmooring. One factor which is having a strong influence on this last aspect is the installation in commercial ports of Automatic Mooring Systems using suction cups (AMS). These devices, which help to reduce considerably the time required to perform the mooring and unmooring manoeuvres, allow the times taken in operations for making steady a vessel to land and of releasing it to sail away to be reduced from some tens of minutes to a few seconds. The aim of this work is to verify the effect of the AMS on the emission of pollutant gases in the surroundings of the installations devoted to Ro-Ro/Pax vessel traffic. In particular, will focus on the CO2 emissions produced by vessels during mooring operations using two different calculation methodologies (EPA and ENTEC), first when using traditional mooring methods as a means of securing the vessel to the dock and second when using only the AMS, to finally carry out a comparison of the results. Will conclude with a discussion on the values of the reduction in emissions obtained and the advantages of installing AMS in commercial ports. In the RoRo/Pax terminals in which the AMS is installed and operating, a reduction in CO2 emissions of 97% has been estimated.