MYSAY There seems to be a lot of short-term thinking when discussing logistics in New Zealand, but we need to take a longer term view. What are some key future issues affecting food industry logistics in New Zealand? To me, these fall into two main categories. First, where will our food come from? Second, what will transport look like? It is a challenging question to project what will happen to where our food is produced. There has been significant progress on growing meat in the lab. Will cultivated meat become the norm, or will it stay an interesting experiment? How will growing automation affect our food production? Will it mean that more food can be grown locally, because of decreased labour costs, or will decreased transportation costs mean it continues to come from all areas of the globe? I think these are interesting questions that I don’t have the answer to. My personal expertise lies much more in answering the second question, what will transport look like? A recent article in the NZ Herald said that three of Auckland’s mayoral candidates are arguing for moving the Ports of Auckland because it will soon reach capacity. The Auckland Harbour Bridge is also at capacity, so should we close it down too? Clearly that argument is illogical and I suspect that debate is really about real estate, which is not the topic of this article. What I do want to point out is that those arguing for moving the port haven’t thought through the logistical consequences of such a move. Seventy per cent of the goods that come into Auckland’s port are destined for the 36 JUNE 2016 surrounding region. Emissions are estimated to increase by a factor of ten if everything was routed through Tauranga. Furthermore, there are some major changes coming that I think are much more important than the current spat over the port (which I suspect will go away as soon as anyone actually looks at the cost of moving it). Autonomous (self-driving) vehicles are seriously on the horizon. It is not clear if they will make our transportation networks more or less efficient – I suspect both. They will be more efficient because they will be able to drive in convoys at high speeds and close following distances on our motorways. They will make it less efficient because when it is much more pleasant to travel by car, then more people will travel by car. This needs to be considered when designing our future road networks. Elon Musk’s Hyperloop (a 760 mph elevated near-supersonic tube three-times faster than the fastest bullet train on earth) is another interesting future development. It is designed to move both people and goods at very high speeds, with it projected to cut a seven-hour drive between Los Angeles and San Francisco to 30 minutes. Very rapid transit will fundamentally change how people and goods flow in the network. Should we be future proofing our train network so that a hyperloop can run alongside it? I suspect we probably should. Of course, all of the above is 2-D thinking. Martin Jetpacks are now going into production. Drones are becoming more common. Will congestion become a thing of the past as goods (and people) are flown around autonomously with zero-emissions technology? I’d like to think that is the future, but sadly I don’t think it will be here any time soon. Tava Olsen is a professor of operations and supply chain management at The University of Auckland Business School, Ports of Auckland Chair of Logistics and Supply Chain Management and academic director of the NZ Centre for Supply Chain Management. FOOD FOR THOUGHT IN By Tava Olsen Elon Musk’s Hyperloop (a 760 mph elevated nearsupersonic tube three-times faster than the fastest bullet train on earth) is another interesting future development. TRANSPORT
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