ABSTRACT
The objective of this study it to explore the impact of changing trends in cargo industry on the facility development, identification of these impacts and recommendation of various standard for the developing facilities. To meet the dynamic and modern trends, it is compulsory to facilitate the employees more and more. Utilization of building is directly related with the profit of cargo industry. Moreover, the demand for additional land over the specific time interval is very major factor impacting the overall strategy of cargo industry.
For the proper facility development, sometimes new land is required for the airport. The demand for additional land is very scare and major commodity to discuss. There are different phases for the development of air cargo industry. It is compulsory to generate a market before the inception of air cargo industry. However, it is much complicated to develop a market for air cargo industry as compare to other processes. The dynamic environment makes the cargo industry innovative and creative. Capacity is also very important factor to be managed within the cargo industry. Too short capacity or too excessive capacities both are dangerous for the future strategies of cargo industry. However, excessive capacity is very helpful to meet the demands of future.
INTRODUCTION
Air cargo industry is one of the emerging industries all over the world. It is compulsory to identify the changing trends and measuring their impact for air cargo industry for the development of facility analysis. The first phase of developing a cargo industry is the establishment of a geographic location of that industry. A survey must be conducted for the selection of land. Through survey, the proper place for the cargo market can be identified analyzing the flow of goods and services.
Once the marketplace is identified, now it is time to develop a strategy for the development of cargo market (Oktal & Ozger, 2013). Through this strategy, again a survey is conducted among the people who are involved in activities of movement of goods in the country and out of country. Furthermore, it includes the development of following sectors.
• Air cargo associations,
• Trucking
• Major manufacturers
• Chambers of Commerce
• Economic Development organizations
After this, now is time to market cargo services. The persons and organizations involved in the business of movement of goods in the country and out of country must be assured that it will be profitable for them to use our cargo services (O'Kelly, 2014).
Once an airport is manufactured and marketed, now it is time to develop the facility requirements according to the need of customers.
These requirements are related with parking, place and location of airport. Commonly, following facility requirements are demanded by all kinds of airports.
• Having complete supply of cargo buildings and cargo stores.
• Understanding the necessary support needed by other facilities and making the managerial operations cost effective.
• Determine the future requirements and future outcomes of cargo facilities (Totamane, Dasgupta, & Rao, 2014).
DEVELOPMENT OF CARGO FACILITIES
There are two channels for the facility development. Through first channel, the owner of cargo airport is financially strong has much capital to develop its facilities on its own bases. On the other hand, the other channel is about outsourcing. If the owner is not so much strong or lacking the labor or managerial facilities, then he will make a contract with any external party for the development of supporting facilities.
According to figure 01, there are total three phases for the development of cargo market and cargo facilities. Phase one deal with market diagnostics. The phase two deals with market strategy development and its evaluation (Rüdiger, Roidl, & ten Hompel, 2013). The last phase or phase three deals with facility implementation and strategies implementation.
Fig. 01: Development of Cargofacilities (Oktal & Ozger, 2013)
CAPACITY CONCEPTS
In the past, the airport industry failed to address the cargo facilities within their services. However, today the overcapacity has become common term. The airport industry has understands that the cargo is very essential facility for them. They are taking the promotional steps to market their cargo facilities to attract the new customers and to retain the old one. The shortage of capacity was always a problem. It creates many issues for the airport industry. With the increasing need of cargo, it is compulsory to get the additional area for airport and more cargo planes as well.
Wind-shear detection system is used for the early warning especially in cargo industry. However this system is failed to because it is not performing according to the desired level (Clausen, Frye, & Sieke, 2013). It is needed to reduce the air cargo infrastructure problem to make it more effective and profitable. Both changes over capacity as well as under capacity create the political problems. In hence, it is needed to use a moderate approach.
Capacity Impact:
It deals with the reduction of various capacity issues either it is dealing with shortage of capacity or surplus of capacity. In case of airport cargo services, the cargo services are facilitated to compare the belly-freight and freighter operations. To keep away from over capacity, it is compulsory to build the cargo services with flexibility (Huefner & Largay, 2013). However, excessive capacity is more beneficial as compare to shortage of capacity. It is best to meet the increasing demand as well.
With the changing customer demand, it is compulsory to promote the cargo facilities to make it more effective and according to customer demand. Both excessive and short capacity especially in seasonal days is very dangerous for the reputation as well as the business of cargo airport (Feng, Li, & Shen, 2015).
Infrastructure strategy:
For the infrastructure development, it is compulsory to build the infrastructure strategy. Strategy must be formulated according to changing trends and it must be modified with the need and demand of customers. Every year, significant resources are required to promote your services and to attract the new customers. However, it is also compulsory to retain the old customers as well. Following steps are compulsory to formulate a strategy according to the
First of all, a strategy must be formulated according to latest trends, and then this strategy is evaluated on the base of latest trends and customers demands. The demands of new customers are promoted for the formation of a strategy (Huefner & Largay, 2013).
Strategy evaluation refers to accountability of strategy. It is measured that strategy is capable to produce the desired results or not. If strategy is not capable to produce the desired results, then it must be modified.
Security requirements and change in technology are compulsory to consider during then formulation of infrastructure development strategy. These are the things that played an important role to modify and formulate the strategy.
Industry growth is an important thing that played the vital role for strategy development. The strategy must promote the growth of industry and makes it a leader industry all over the world. Moreover, cargo is industry that depends on formulated strategy for its growth (Huefner & Largay, 2013).
FACILITY REQUIREMENTS
There are many variables that impact the growth and operational efficiencies of the cargo industry. Moreover, it is compulsory to run the cargo industry with the changing trends. Hence, a single formula cannot be formulated to cover the functions of whole industry. There are various tools that are used to measure the industry norms. Through the help of these norms, many reasonable expectations can be revealed.
The facility requirements of cargo industry deals with various quantitative methodologies those are compulsory to promote the facilities within the industry (Rim & Ha, 2013). As already mentioned, the facility development in cargo industry depends on the trends and requirements on industry. Some important factors demanding for facility management are given below.
Air Cargo Buildings:
Air cargo buildings are most important assets of industry. To enhance the business, it is compulsory to utilize all the parts of building effectively. Utilization rate is measured by footage square area. The facility planning at larger air ports or small air ports needs to identify the requirements, capacity of building and the utilization rate of building. Utilization rate of one ton per foot is used as the maximum benchmark (Selinka, Franz, & Stolletz, 2014).
Aircraft Parking Positions:
As compare to air cargo buildings, the air cargo ramps are more in relation with the cargo planes and their size. Verge-day/peak-hour methodology is used to measure the utilization of these airports ramps. Use of this methodology gives the more perfect information about the utilization of area as compare to cargo buildings. Moreover this methodology is very best to plan for the future and forecasting.
Landside Effectiveness:
Trucking is the major factor that is affecting the cargo industry from several years. The major impact of this trucking is on the internal land side of cargo airports. The effectiveness of internal land side is very crucial for the organization (Ballis, 2015). Furthermore, land effectiveness deal with overall land of airport, the parking places and road ways capacities of airport.
Truck Docks, Maneuvering and Staging Areas:
These are the areas where the local and road transportation is done. It is very dependent on the building structure of cargo services. Current building structure contains the double space for the trucking and other staging areas.
Employee/customer parking areas:
More area is required for then customer parking as compare to employee parking. Moreover, all the parking places must be on one side of the cargo airports and away from cargo ramps. The customer parking areas must be facilitated as compare to employee areas. There must be proper security system on the parking places for the protection of customer's assets (Shen, Chou, & Lee, 2013).
OPERATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
The air cargo industry is one of the industries of the world that faces very rapid change. That's why industry faced a lot of facility issues especially in operational cases. The most significant issue faced by cargo industry is prediction for future and present activities. With the changing trends, new crafts with the latest facilities are needed to meet the modern operations as well as demand of customers. The emerging trends are impacting the facility management within the cargo industry very effectively (GÜZEL & ERDAL, 2015). The cargo industry is moving towards the adaption of new trends to meet the modern trends as well.
More Specialized Air Cargo Facilities: To meet the modern trends, it is needed to specialize the cargo facilities. The greater specialization will move the industry towards the innovation and creativity as well.
Air Cargo Infrastructure Support: It is needed to develop the overall infrastructure of industry to promote the industry towards modernization. More ramps and buildings must be constructed to facilitate the employees as well as customers.
Enhanced Processing and Federal Inspection Services: It is recommended that the federal inspection services must be initiated to bring the accountability within the industry. Paper-intensive federal inspection services are very effective to make the employees competent as well as efficient (Totamane, et al., 2014). The inspection will force the employee to follow the rules and regulation made by cargo services.
LAYOUT PLANNING ISSUES
The dynamic environment of the industry and the changing trends make the industry more innovative and creative. These are the factors that moved the industry to forecast for the future and plan for the future. Following traditional ways to operate the industry makes the industry very weak. In hence, it is compulsory for the industry to follow the changing trends to make it more innovative as well as creative.
For the planning, it is compulsory to determine the market size and market facilities (Selinka, et al., 2014). The size of the market and market demands are very major determinants to plan for the future. Two types of planning issues are faced by the cargo services.
Land Use Issues:
The additional for additional area is more crucial factor for any cargo industry to be managed. The development of area, site constraints and facility location are major issues related to cargo industry. When the development steps are taken about the land use, then these factors are very major to be managed.
Facility Layout Issues:
Effective and optimized facility laid out also optimized the utilization of cargo land. It means the utilization of cargo land is related with the facility plans (Ballis, 2015). If the facility plans are effective, then they will promote the utilization of land and it will promote overall profit of cargo industry. The parking areas, cargo buildings and cargo ramps are very major to be facilitated after the specific period of time.
CONCLUSION
The paper discussed the cargo industry and importance of facility development for cargo industry. With the changing trends, the importance of facility management is increasing for the cargo services. To build cargo industry, it is compulsory to identify the market area and market demand. The movement of goods across the borders of country is very major for cargo industry. The buildings, parking places, operational plans and land utilization are major factors to be facilitated within the cargo industry.