Millicent High School

YEAR 12 MATHS APPLICATIONS

Ships have long been used as a means of transporting required goods from city to city
(or between countries). As the storage methods for the cargo changed, so too did the
ships. Each had its own unique processes involved in loading and stowing the cargo.

All of these processes and sub-tasks take a certain amount of time, and they all
happen at various times and on multiple occasions throughout the loading process.
Knowing how long a vessel will take to load its cargo is a crucial part of port
operations, as it allows for effective allocation of ship berths (like parking spots) on
the wharf. This is a problem that can be solved by critical path analysis.

This directed investigation will get you to look at one (or more) of the three major
types of vessel used in Australian operations, along with a typical cargo to be loaded.

You will be required to:

• Use the information that follows to work out a suitable set of sub-tasks.
• Based on this information, create a suitable activity table indicating which
activities have pre-requisites, and what they are.
• Use this information to construct a network diagram, showing the links
between tasks and the time for each task to complete.
• Conduct a critical path analysis on your network diagram to find out what the
critical path is, and thus how long it will take to load the indicated cargo.
• Finally, you will be asked to consider why certain restrictions on the
placement of cargo exist, and to write some concluding statements about the
relevance of critical path analysis to the particular problem of cargo loading.
The Cargo Diagram:

In addition, the ketch has deck hands for loading cargo by hand, and two derricks (a
derrick is a ship-mounted piece of lifting equipment, kind of like a small crane) with
which to load heavy cargo. The ketch came in to dock with its hatch closed. The
following are the timings for each loading subtask.

• Putting in the false decks and walls, and opening or closing the hatch takes 5
minutes per deck, wall, or opening/closing.
• Wheat and barley get loaded on via chutes at 2 bags per minute.
• The crew needs both derricks on the ship to load up farming machinery, and
one crate takes 7 minutes to load.
• Barrels get carried on to the ship by the deck hands, and they go on at an
average rate of 2 per minute.
• Crates of kitchen and cooking implements get loaded on by the ship’s derricks
at the rate of 3 per minute.
• Wool bales can be carried on by the deck hands as well as by the derricks. The
deck hands can load them at the rate of 1 per minute, and the derrick can load
them at the rate of 2 per minute.
• The drums form the pens for the livestock. They get carried on board at the
rate of 3 per minute.
• Livestock gets carried on to the ship by slings attached to the derricks. Each
derrick can load one animal per minute.
• The ship has to pass its final safety inspection before leaving port. Such an
inspection normally takes six minutes.
You will need to work out:
1. What the subtasks are, what order they go in, and what prerequisites there are (if
any) for each sub-task. (Hint: Your network diagram will be made much easier if
you can condense the loading time for each individual item of cargo into one
lump for each cargo type (or group of cargo items of a particular type). Put these
subtasks with their timings into an activity table.
2. The network diagram (with correctly labelled edges) that corresponds to the
activity table you worked out in Step 2.
3. The critical path and hence how long it takes for the vessel to load.
Here is the loading diagram:

Tween
Deck
Tween
Deck
Lower
Hold
These came after ketches, but before the big container ships of today. For all intents
and purposes they were similar to ketches, only larger in size and with the addition of
lockers (shown on the tween decks). These lockers could be refrigerated to store
expensive perishables (such as meat and seafood). Some ships had only one tween
deck; others, like the one shown above, had two tween decks.

These ships had two derricks on each side of the ship (so four in total). Two could
take cargo that was waiting on the wharf, and two could take cargo from a passing
ship or barge. The ship came in to dock with all hatches closed. Below are the timings
for each subtask.

• Wheat and other types of grain were packed in bags. These were loaded into
slings (up to six bags in each sling) and the slings were loaded on to the ship
in the lower hold by derricks. The process of loading bags into one sling and
getting the sling on board took an average time of 7 minutes.
• Ship hands then moved the bags into position and secured them with netting.
This took 3 minutes.
• Crates of books were heavy, and had to be loaded on by derrick. To save time,
three crates were lashed together and carried by the wharf-side derrick (or
derricks) on to the ship. The process of lashing together, getting each group of
three crates on to the ship, and positioning them took 5 minutes.
• Fresh fruit and vegetables were often carried in padded crates. These had to go
in the tween decks, but not in the refrigerated lockers. The crates were netted
together in groups of up to 4 and carried on board by one of the two wharf-
 side derricks. Each group of 4 crates took 3 minutes to get on board and in
place.
• Fruit was also carried in barrels. Barrels could be lashed together in groups of
up to five and lifted on board by derrick. They were then rolled into position
on the ships. This process took 4 minutes per group of barrels.
• Wool bales were carried on board by the deck hands. They were smaller than
the bales loaded onto ketches, because the wool was packed more tightly.
However, this also made them heavy. As a result, deck hands could only load
one on every two minutes.
• The hatches on this type of ship were closed up by laying steel bars across the
open hatch, then laying wooden boards over the steel bars. To open hatches,
deck hands simply removed the boards, then the steel bars. Each process took
an average of 6 minutes to complete.
• Crayfish and lobster was loaded on in crates, and put in the refrigerated
lockers to keep from spoiling. The deckhands used a chute to slide the boxes
from the wharf to the vessel, and carried them into place in the lockers. This
process was completed at a rate of 5 containers per minute. It was possible to
load the seafood at the same time as the cargo going onto the tween decks.
• After the lockers on a given tween deck were both completely packed, the
lockers were inspected to make sure that the doors were secured and the
refrigeration systems were working properly. This took a total of 8 minutes.
• Drums of two-stroke fuel were lifted on deck by the derricks, in groups of
three (or up to three). Each lift took 2 minutes.
• As with the ketch, a final safety inspection had to be carried out before the
ship could leave port. Because this type of cargo ship was larger than a ketch,
the safety inspection took longer – 10 minutes to be exact.

You will need to work out:

1. What the subtasks are, what order they go in, and what prerequisites there are (if
any) for each sub-task. (Hint: Your network diagram will be made much easier if
you can condense the loading time for each individual cargo item into one lump
for each cargo type (or group of cargo items of a particular type). Put these
subtasks with their timings into an activity table.
2. The network diagram (with correctly labelled edges) that corresponds to the
activity table you worked out in Step 2.
3. The critical path and hence how long it takes for the vessel to load.
Today, the vast majority of cargo shipping is done with large container vessels. The
containers are all of a uniform size, on the outside, no matter what type of container
they are or what they carry. Some types of container are:

Fridge Containers – carry expensive perishables like seafood and meat.

Dangerous Goods – carry hazardous or flammable chemicals (such as solvents, paint,
or cleaning products)
Insulated Containers – carried fruit and vegetables.
Normal Containers – carry just about everything else!

• Some container ships have just the single hatch on deck. Others (such as the one
below) also have a stern hatch which can be lowered so that trucks and forklifts
can drive on and load/unload containers. It takes 5 minutes to lower or raise the
stern hatch, or to open/close the hatch on deck.
• Each type of container can be put on the ship by crane (which takes a minimum
of two minutes per crane per container) or by forklift truck (which takes a
minimum of 3 minutes per truck per container). There are usually three cranes
and two forklift trucks servicing one container ship during a load.

Each container has restrictions as to when and where it can go on board. These are as
follows:
• The heaviest containers must go at the bottom of the cargo hold. Weight must be
as evenly distributed as possible (with leftover containers going towards the
middle of the ship). Heavier containers must not be stowed on top of lighter ones.
Otherwise, the ship will be too unstable when at sea, and is therefore liable to
capsize, sink, or break its back. This means losing all the cargo on board!
• Containers cannot go above deck unless there is no more room below deck. If
containers have to go above deck, they must be securely lashed together to
prevent containers from falling off the ship in rough weather. This adds 2 minutes
to the total loading time for every five (or part thereof) containers that have to be
stowed above deck.
• Both cranes and trucks can be used to stow containers below deck. Only the crane
may be used to stow containers above deck

Fridge Containers
• If there is more than one fridge container, they must all be stowed together (ie.
each fridge container must be next to, above or below at least one other fridge
container). This is to facilitate the process of plugging in the electricity and
conducting checks.
• They can go above or below deck.
• Plugging into the container ship’s electricity supply and checking for leaks adds
an extra minute to the loading time of each fridge container.

Insulated Containers
• Insulated containers have to go below deck.
• There are no other restrictions on insulated containers, so no extra time is added.

Dangerous Goods
• Dangerous goods must be stowed above deck.
• They must not be stowed next to any other type of container (except other
dangerous goods containers). Therefore, they need to be stowed by themselves on
a separate section of the deck.
• Safety checks are carried out on each container, and their contents are noted
(according to the information sheet attached to each container) so that equipment,
such as fire extinguishers, may be taken on board as needed. This adds an extra
two minutes per container (for the safety check).
• If dangerous goods are on board the vessel, protective and safety equipment must
be loaded. This takes 5 minutes.

Normal Containers
• Includes empty containers of any type
• Can be placed anywhere on the boat (but not next to dangerous goods containers).

The next page will gives you a blank diagram of a container ship, and the containers
to go on board. Each pile of containers to be loaded will have a number according to
their weight (1 being the lightest). You will need to work out:

1. How the containers should go on board.

 You can do this by cutting out the ‘containers’ and pasting them in to the
desired place on the ship.
 Remember to obey the restrictions on where containers can go, and don’t
overlap containers!
 It will help, when you are cutting out containers, to label them with their
contents and their weight. For example, if you have three containers of
apples and two containers of pears, you could write ‘apples’ ‘2’ and ‘pears’
‘3’ on the relevant containers. (By the way, this is consistent with actual
industry practice.)
2. What the subtasks are, what order they go in, and what prerequisites there are (if
any) for each sub-task. (Hint: Your network diagram will be made much easier if
you can condense the loading time for each individual container into one lump
for each container type (or group of containers of a particular type). Put these
subtasks with their timings into an activity table.
3. The network diagram (with correctly labelled edges) that corresponds to the
activity table you worked out in Step 2.
4. The critical path and hence how long it takes for the vessel to load.
The following questions are designed to give you a more complete understanding of
the complexities of loading and unloading cargo onto ships, and the processes
involved.

1. Why were drums of kerosene and diesel always kept above deck on a ketch?
2. Why couldn’t you put livestock below deck on a ketch?
3. On the container ship diagram, there is an area where you can’t load
containers. What do you believe is the reason for this restriction?
4. Some containers of dangerous goods are being loaded onto an area of the ship
that can normally take 16 containers. The chemical company who owns the
containers only has 9 containers to be loaded, but the shipping company must
charge them for all 16 container spaces. Why do you think this is?
5. Why do insulated containers have to go below deck?
6. Why shouldn’t heavy containers be stowed on top of lighter ones?
7. Given the previous information about fridge containers, why should fridge
containers be stowed next to each other?
8. Write a concluding paragraph summarising the investigation and discuss the
relevance of networks and critical path analysis to the idea of loading a cargo
vessel.