For several decades, textbooks, articles and consultancy reports in supply chain management (SCM) have expounded the virtues of low inventory, just-in-time delivery, single-sourcing, centralization and tightly-coupled processes. Heeding their advice, many companies have effectively implemented...

The growth in container volumes and the concentration of container flows on a limited number of hubs, which derives, among other things, from the increasing vessel size, requires the development of new terminal infrastructure at ports able to handle the latest generation of vessels. In addition...