The Operations Podcast with Fexingo · 2026-07-28 · 8 min
This episode dives into a specific operational overhaul at Maersk, the world's largest container shipping company, that reduced the time ships spend in port by 40 percent. We explore how they analyzed port call data across 400 terminals, identified a critical bottleneck in stowage planning - the process of deciding where to place containers on a vessel before arrival. By redesigning the planning software and shifting to a centralized team, they cut turnaround time from an average of 30 hours to 18 hours. That freed up capacity equivalent to adding dozens of ships to their fleet without building a single hull. We walk through the operational details: how they tested it in Rotterdam, then scaled globally; the impact on fuel costs (down 12 percent because ships spent less time idling); and the cultural shift needed to get terminal operators and captains to trust a new system. This is a concrete case of process redesign driving both cost savings and revenue growth, with lessons for any operation that depends on coordinating multiple parties under time pressure.
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