Today, we had the great pleasure of learning about four companies: Cyprus Ports Authority, DP World, P&O Maritime Logistics, and Eurogate. They each brought something a little bit different to the table; however, there was one thing that was prominent throughout all companies: the fact that they each had a connection to supply chain. In terms of discussing what each of them had to do with the supply chain, they were all involved heavily with one of the six modes of transportation, ships. They all deal heavily with boats, specifically using them to import goods from other places to use in Cyprus. It turns out that Cyprus is mainly an importer and hardly an exporter. When it comes to how they import the goods, we learned that they focus a lot on one of the two issues involved in the tradeoff in any supply chain, efficiency. When asking DP World why they only have a few tugboats and pilots, they said that it was a matter of efficiency. Using less as opposed to more has proven to them to be successful, as having too many pilots or tug boats would be challenging given that their port in Limassol is relatively small compared to most other ports around the world. Using the pilot and tug boat, they would help guide the ship, whether that be a cargo ship, or a cruise ship into port. We also learned that they have special types of containers for food items that will keep them at the right temperature, which tackles the efficiency aspect as well. Overall, all four companies play a vital role in the supply chain, being both the recipients and transporters of goods. Without them, lots of the things that fill the streets and restaurants of Cyprus, would not be here.

Shifting away from how all four companies relate to the supply chain, this paragraph will discuss exactly how they perform their respective duties, such as transporting goods on and off cargo ships. After listening to some extremely helpful presentations, especially for someone who had a lot of questions going into today, we got to see how Eurogate moves containers onto the ships. It was explained to us that they use a surplus of machines to aid in the transport of these huge containers, such as the machine as seen in the image to the left. The machines would not do all of the work however, as they would require the help of usually at least one conductor who has had to go through months, if not years of training. We got to see one of the machines/cranes attach to a container, and lift it up from a truck to be placed on top of a previously stacked rack of containers. In this particular case they were moving empty containers, however they also move full containers, which contain a surplus of goods. If it were the opposite, and they were to be unloading the ship instead of loading it, a truck would pull up alongside the boat in which the crane, operated by a human, would carefully latch on to it and guide its towards the truck. After the truck was loaded, it would then go away to one of the numerous areas in which they could unload the containers, and go back to get another. This was all really impressive to me, not only were the machines an incredible site, being able to hold so much weight, but the people who control the machines having had to do months if not years of training, it was all something that I did not think would be really cool, but in reality, it was awesome.