A hub of bright ideas

With cargo volumes down, some terminals are even keener than usual to maximise the productivity benefits of their IT systems and demands on vendors to innovate is as great as ever, writes Benedict Young

IT systems to aid the efficient running of cargo terminals have evolved over many years, with many specialist companies having come and gone over time. Despite the emergence of several branded terminal operating systems (TOS), a surprisingly large number of terminals instead still rely on inhouse legacy systems (see box).

Not long ago, at a time when growth was on an upward trajectory and congestion was a major concern, there was increasing pressure on TOS suppliers to help terminals to handle more boxes more efficiently and at less cost.

Despite worldwide economic woes and the collapse of the container shipping business, TOS suppliers appear to have just as much of an appetite to continue meeting those goals. After all, they say, the market will recover and efficient, cost-effective means of operating cargo terminals will remain important.

Most TOS suppliers have ongoing technical innovation programs designed to serve the needs of their customers and to stay ahead of the game in a highly competitive sector.

The largest TOS supplier, Zebra Enterprise Solutions, argues that the latest incarnation of its Navis system provides a unique flexibility to the terminal operators.

Richard Harrison, senior VP, explains: "The architecture of Sparcs N4 is unique in that it allows for clients to both configure many different operating behaviours by non- IT users and it allows local, client IT staff to insert their own custom code. By doing this, Sparcs N4 allows best-of-breed configurations out-of-the-box whilst also allowing a degree of local code customisation by competent IT staff. It really is the best of both worlds for terminals coming from a unique in-house environment."

Realtime Business Solutions (RBS) plans to release a new product suite in the fourth quarter of 2010 but is keeping its cards close to its chest. "We are constantly developing new ideas to support the TOS in the future, but because of our strategy, we can not disclose them at this time," explains Harry Nguyen, the Australian firm’s MD.

Jade Software has added a lot of support for general cargo break bulk operations and increased the level of automated planning capability in its systems.

Dave Quennell, the New Zealand-based company’s logistics programme manager, explains: "Examples include load and discharge list comparisons from shipping lines and improvements in user-defined EDI messages. We’ve introduced voice recognition systems for CHE driver direction and gate kiosk features allowing truck drivers to manage their own gate processing without demounting from the truck which streamlines gate processing. We’ve also made the full system available over RDT networks and introduced rich internet applications so the terminal’s customers can directly access data from the TOS."

Russia-based Solvo tells CS that its use of "genetic algorithms" provides very good results in a short time period when planning vessel and railway rolling stock loading/unloading.

"The main advantage of our solution is the completeness of the functional with the relatively low cost," claims Maxim Maximov, head of the company’s analytics department. "Our company has been working in the market of logistics automation since 1992. For this period of time we’ve received a wide experience in automation of container terminals and large warehouses. Certainly we use this experience in new projects implementation, reducing risks of the project and its budget. Our system is very flexible so we are able to realise all the nuances of business-processes of our customers." Tideworks Technology has recently undertaken some large-scale intermodal projects in the US, which has helped enhance its intermodal terminal product offering, providing what the company says are some "innovative and exciting solutions" to serve the market.

"Some of these innovations include the ability to plan trains over a network of multiple terminals, corporate level visibility into operations throughout the entire network and enhanced user interfaces and planning tools," says Michael Schwank, Tideworks’ president, adding that there will be some "exciting announcements" forthcoming in this area.

The company has also been working on innovations for its core TOS for marine container terminals, Mainsail. Schwank explains: "We are constantly driving the product forward and are in the process of performing user testing on a redesigned version of Mainsail, built on a new development platform, which will ultimately provide an enhanced user experience as well as additional tools, making the product even more powerful and intuitive. Tideworks will be providing more details on this development in the near future.

Recent enhancements to Tideworks’ automated gate solution, GateVision, include: a redesign of the GateVision kiosk with more safety elements, industrial quality components, as well as additional interactive and "self service" capabilities; VOIP capabilities for more cost-effective and flexible voice communications; the ability to integrate the system with virtually any TOS; and system architecture improvements allowing the system to control multiple gate complexes and multiple terminals from a centralised location. "There are two critical features of our technological innovation: TSB’s vertically integrated product portfolio and world best products," says Eui-Sik Kwon, COO of Total Soft Bank (TSB).

"TSB provides a suite of advanced IT solutions, each specifically designed for shipping, marine terminal, port community and simulator. These can either be standalone or be integrated with each other as TSB family products or those of other providers. Customers easily control and manage TSB’s cutting-edge IT solutions and enjoy the one-stop service of port and maritime IT solutions." The "world best products" referred to are TSB’s Computer Automated Terminal Operation System (Catos), Super Stowage Planner (SS-Planner) and Port Logistics Unifying System (Plus).

"Applying a plan-do-see concept, Catos provides streamlined and automated modular work processes for users to benefit from shorter operation cycles and higher performances. To meet the needs of comprehensive work process, Catos is equipped with supervisory control and data acquisition (Scada) for flawless integration between the main operation system and the external systems. It reduces manual further key-in and enhances data accuracy control."

The company recently released web-based application modules of Catos and is offering users support to prepare for a web-based business environment.

TSB claims that SS-Planner is the worldfirst automatic stowage planning system to complete the most optimised stowage planning in minutes. "Differing from existing manual way in stowage planning, SS-Planner enables ship planners to consider all relevant conditions and situations at a time and then present the most optimised results automatically," says Kwon.

Plus is a web-based port community system designed to provide internal and external port community entities with real time online access to a full range of port services, says TSB, The ability to exchange information in a single window web application is intended to provide accelerated, standardised and collaborative work processes, in a one-stopshop approach.

The ability for a port community to work together to keep costs low, efficiency high, and still meet their own competitive interests is one of the biggest innovations seen in the last few years, according to John Lund, sales manager at Visy.

"A great example is the port of Helsinki Vuosaari Harbour, which went live in November 2008," he says. "There are five players at the port: the port authority, three competing terminal operators, and the customs agency.

Each of the five organisations has their own separate IT systems and each terminal has its own TOS. "The gate system acts as a port-wide IT unification system allowing a truck to enter the main gate area with cargo, drop off at Terminal 1, pick-up a box at Terminal 2, clear customs and exit the port all in a single trip.

"This multi-level gate system communicates with all TOS and vehicle booking systems to create seamless traffic flow throughout the entire port. In addition to road traffic the system also monitors the port’s rail cargo with optical character recognition for container code ID."

Terminal operators with foresight may well use the opportunity afforded by the current lull in cargo volumes to upgrade their IT systems ready for the upswing to come, provided they can raise the necessary funds to do so.

While there is no doubt that the cargo industry and the systems used to streamline it continue to develop, the array of technology on offer does prompt questions, such as which vendor to choose, how to ensure your IT system is scalable and future-proof and the potential future impact of automation and emerging technologies. There is, of course, no shortage of advice available, both from IT vendors that want your business as well as independent consultants.

See related story, Some friendly advice for the uninitiated