For centuries a shipbuilding order risk is viewed and managed from each of the contracting parties involved - including financial institutions - mainly in an entirely isolated manner. The paper proposes a business model where risk in any decision to proceed with placing, financing and accepting an order for a newbuilding project should be viewed from a shared-risk mitigation perspective. Authors show the analogy with the “bullwhip effect” in supply chain management theory attributing excessive risk creation to the way ships are ordered, financed and built by each link in the newbuilding chain. The authors analyse shipbuilding orders as a shared bundled risk of all parties proposing a different shipbuilding transaction framework which has the potential to reduce risk exposure for all players involved and ultimately, through market-based investment planning, to contribute to industry long-term equilibrium and overall sustainability.

A series of market changes (e.g. energy transition to greener propulsion systems, automation) and regulatory pushes (e.g. biofuels, water treatment systems) are pushing shipowners to either rethink the use of the vessels or to properly plan the renew of their fleet. As such, shipbuilding industry is facing an unprecedented challenge: on one hand, shipyards need to avoid past mistakes in production booming, adapting their output to market needs, remaining as flexible as possible to meet expected cyclical downturns; on the other hand, shipyards act as technology assembly point and need to renew their capacity in order to meet new technological requirements. As such, shipyard companies need to radically change their internal organization as well as their business model. On the top of this scenario, shipyards – despite their major impact on the shipping industry – are understudied, with most economic characteristics still unveiled, as underlined by the OECD WP6 on shipbuilding (OECD, 2018). The current paper aims at filling this gap, identifying current patterns in the shipbuilding sector through a series of statistical assessments on both primary (e.g. interviews, website, survey) and secondary (i.e., industry database) data in order to understand how the changing ship technologies and requirements (size, propulsion systems, automation) impact on the ship production process and how these market modifications are impacting main shipbuilders worldwide. The paper will then determine a conceptual roadmap aiming at designing the future of the shipbuilding industry.

The current pandemic has revived the discussions around supply chain strategies and structures as well as fed the discussion on the possibilities of countries to (re)position themselves in global supply chain structures. One response to reduce supply chain fragility is the concept of nearshoring. In a Latin American context nearshoring concerns the options of countries to gain Bedeutungsüberschuss in regional supply chain strategies. While the BRI (OBOR) initiative pushes towards nearshoring opportunities for Asia-Europe-Africa, the future location of regional logistics and nearshoring centres in Latin America and the Caribbean are still to be defined. We argue that readiness for nearshoring strategies require significant logistics capabilities and infrastructure particularly in proximity to ports; i.e. port centric logistics. This paper analyses the factors that define the opportunities and limitations of this endeavour regarding the preparedness of countries to develop the relevant port specific location factors to become alternatives for traditional offshoring supply chain strategies. Specific focus is given to the possible role of port centric logistics strategies.

In order to optimize shipping logistics and improve the reliability of river transport, the Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) of inland vessels must be accurately predicted. This article aims to compare and identify the most reliable methodology to achieve an accurate ETA on Seine River.