My Research Experience

My name is Flor Melina Pitty I belong to the Department of Transportation and Navigation Science at the National Taiwan Ocean University. I think I can describe my research experience as very productive, friendly and beneficial for my field of study. This master research complements very well with my job since I already have a Bachelor’s Degree in Maritime Enterprises Management.

Been the first foreigner in the Transportation and Navigation Department has been a great experience since the moment I met my professors and labmates. They were always giving me their support to make me feel comfortable as if I was at home. When I met Tina and Justin (Labmates) I though I will have big troubles to understand each other, because I didn’t know any Chinese and their English was, as they always says, ‥a little‥. But one year later has passed, and I am happy of being so wrong, I realize there is always a way to communicate to each other and to be friends even though we don’t speak the same language and of course much more happier to now see how their English and my Chinese have improve a lot.

Related to the classes and professors, I think they did and are still doing a big effort to transmit to me all their knowledge in a language that is not their native and also to answer all my questions about my study field and I truly thank them because that’s the base I needed to start my research thesis.

My research studies are related to the container terminal ports. I am from Panama and as you can see in the map we have coasts in the Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean, what makes the container business one of the most important income to my country. Taiwan counts with one of the most important container ports in the world (No. 6th in the World Container Port ranking in terms of container throughput) and I decided to develop my studies focusing on this port and how to improve their actual performance.

My research activities included visits to Kaohsiung port and to Keelung port to increase my knowledge about containers. I went to the port to see the current operational method of container stacking and also to collect the data for my thesis. (as you can see in the pictures below).

The methodology to analyze the data are to use several multivariate analysis in order to prove how the booking system for containers could improve the container delivery to the consignee and reducing the rehandles of the rubber tire gantry crane and in consequence the operational time in the port.

Also I expect to design a model simulation in arena software, to show and compare the actual operation model with the new container booking operation model.

Now, I am in the final part of my research, I have to make a preliminary presentation of the research in an International Conference at Auckland, New Zealand (also supported by my department) and then my final thesis sustentation at NTOU.

My expected contribution is to improve the performance of Kaohsiung Port in making the Taiwan container terminal more competitive in this field and of course in this way return to my country to implement new ideas in the container terminals and the knowledge obtained in Taiwan.

                                         Flor Melina Pitty