Agile Project Management in International Logistics Operations

Introduction

Transportation sector is fundamental for the economy of the European Union (EU) countries and acts as a generator in today’s globalized and mobile society. EU’s vision would be to support a more sustainable transportation industry that handles the requirements of the EU states and their population yet fighting the upcoming restrictions: oil shortage, increasing crowding and the urge to diminish toxic emissions like CO₂ and others, with the aim of improving the environmental conditions. In the next 30 years transport sector must decrease the greenhouse gas emissions by 60% compared to 1990 and to cut dependence on imported oil (European Commission, 2018; European Union, 2019).

In the naval sector too, efforts are being made to mitigate the impacts of greenhouse gases and therefore reduce the effects of climate change underway: shipping as a whole emitted 1,036 million tons of CO2 in 2007, equal to 3.3% of global emissions. If we consider only maritime transport in international navigation, excluding cabotage and fishing, the estimate is 870 million tons, equal to about 2.7% of global CO2 emissions. International maritime transport is the only sector, among the main energy consumers, to have remained excluded from the implementation measures of the Kyoto Protocol, implemented by the European Union and by the main industrialized countries (with the exception of known, have not ratified the protocol). It is possible to work to increase energy efficiency in ship design but it must be remembered that the energy management of a fleet is extremely complex, as it requires huge resources and a systematic approach. In the maritime sector, there are essentially three areas of final consumption: the mechanical energy required for propulsion, the absorption of electricity and the need for thermal or cooling energy. While the port infrastructures can include handling systems for TEUs and accessibility to ports. Primary energy consumption does not depend only on the efficiency and management of the fleets in relation to the loads but also on the management of the navigation speed in relation to the waiting times at the terminals (Villani, 2011).

Economic logistics could be divided into two broad categories: 1) the study of logistic systems; 2) the study of the logistics services industry. The first should mainly deal with public and private networks and infrastructural systems (ports, airports, inter - ports, railway networks, platforms, distripark, etc.) and related problems of regulation, planning, programming, design, financing, monitoring and management (Forte, 2001a; Iannone, 2002a, 2002b). The infrastructural policies in fact guarantee the necessary pre - conditions to ensure physical circulation of products, assuming a central role in the structuring of logistic cycles and influencing the location choices and therefore also the selection of the privileged areas of settlement. It is therefore a question of optimizing the capacity and potential for use of infrastructures, mutually adapting them to each other and to the size of the flows, which express the dimension of demand understood as a component of the market, where capacity and potential make up the offer on a macro - territorial scale (Forte, 2003a). So, in addition to the continuous rationalization of the production and commercial chains, the attention of the logistic culture goes also and above all to the logistic strategies of country - system and the ability to reposition and logistical integration with other areas, in particularly with those in the developing world: South America, South Africa, Eastern Europe, South Asia, but also the Central Asia. The volume of exports to Asia has increased significantly due to policies export - oriented based on sea and air navigation (UN ESCAP, 2019; WTO, 2019). In this continent it is witnessed an acceleration towards the globalization of local economies and an increase in activities by multinational companies. The improvement of domestic transport activities in Asian countries, however, still represents a difficult objective to pursue, with notable repercussions on the full efficiency of globalized production and logistics systems. In particular, laws and regulations regarding the logistics sector are quite different in each country of the continent in question. Indeed, in most of them is missing a clear political direction for freight logistics, as well as for supporting scientific research (Ianone, 2003a).