Kris Kosmala writes for Splash today on a topic he’s regularly asked about.
Introducing robotics in container terminals gives rise to emotions, questions, and sometime violent resistance from employees fearing either reduction in their work or a complete loss of employment. Though in reality, automation will progress and it will greatly affect how we operate modern container terminals.
Historically, ports went hand in hand with the commercial and manufacturing activity of human settlements. Over time, the land in those settlements became scarce and more dense, pushing the factories farther and farther away from the shore and preventing the ports from expanding to accommodate more and more goods being traded between the settlements.
Managing the smooth flow of goods in that limited space has led to plenty of innovations. First and foremost, we started shipping goods in reasonably standardised boxes. This changed the nature of the piers serving the vessels, the equipment lifting the boxes, and the techniques to stow those boxes into the holds of the vessels. Containers are not smoothly entering and leaving the container terminals at the same time. So, we also learned to stack the boxes higher and in denser stacks than ever before. The tight space in these temporary storage yards has led to evolution of the container stacking equipment and new techniques for managing the yards.
More goods being traded translate into more vessels calling the terminals more frequently and more boxes being exchanged between the terminal and the vessel during every terminal call. The speed of the exchange of the boxes between the terminal and the vessels, as well as between the terminal and the hinterland had to increase, but there are limits to how fast we can transport each container both horizontally and vertically at each stage of the vessel-land exchange.
This production line still consists of the same distinct zones – the berth at which the ship is loaded/unloaded, the area between the berth and the container stacks, the stacks in the yard, the area between the stacks and the external gates of the terminal, the gates through which the containers enter and leave the yard, and the terminal access area external to the terminal. This mini-chain of zones must function smoothly and at the same speed to avoid creation of bottlenecks.
When we automate a factory production line consisting of multiple machines sequentially processing one unit of some product, we carefully analyse the optimal time needed for that product to be handed off between any two machines. The analysis results in definition of the takt time, the amount of time that must elapse between two consecutive unit completions in order to meet the demand. Translating this into the container terminal speak, the optimal takt results in no loss of time due to handling of the box in each distinct zone and handoffs of the box between adjacent zones. In case of the terminal, the demand is the number of required (by contract) moves of the container between the land and the vessel expressed in berth moves per hour (BMPH) or vessel moves per hour (VMPH). That measure then drives the speed of the machines operating in each of those distinct zones through which the container travels.
In automated terminals, we use mathematics to synchronise the rate at which the machines perform the handling and the handoffs. We can tune this rate ad infinitum to meet the desired demand. In semi-automated and in manual terminals mathematics gives way to human minds and human behaviour. Predictability of task duration is not possible, as each human in the chain operates at slightly different, untunable speed. Telling each human in this loop to slow down or to accelerate is too complex, too labour intensive, and too inefficient.
In automating the terminal, it is important to keep a few critical issues in mind.
Decide which zone will be automated. Remember, movement of the container within and between the terminal zones is a process and there may be different performance KPI for each zone. Faster operation in the new yard cranes may have no effect on the speed of exchange between the berth and the vessel. Slower operation of the new yard cranes may slow down the gate and truck turnaround. Also, “starting small” may not result in any visible improvements of the process speed, but it could increase productivity within the zone where you implement automation. Ensure total control over the takt of the new process. Test ahead taking advantage of any process automation emulators available from equipment suppliers or independent software providers.
Quantify the KPIs. Robotic crane solution might make sense from a technical point of view, but not as an investment. Quantifying the expected benefits is key. Typically, savings on manhours/TEU KPI is used as the leading indicator, but other indicators will be equally important since automation is targeting both work productivity and financial KPIs.
Manage the automation program professionally. Automation requires new work processes, new infrastructure, new machines, and new software. They will have to be designed, arrive, be installed, integrated, tested and commissioned in a highly organized fashion. This multi-disciplinary program is not a job for a half-baked project manager. Any fallouts between the timings of e.g. infrastructure construction and installation of the machine(s) need to be managed with the comprehension of both by a single program manager. Multiple project and sub-project heads making narrow decisions will lead to conflicts and delays, if not managed under the responsibility of a single head of the program. Many terminal automation projects fail to deliver the expected results, because responsibilities were not explicitly allocated, necessary preparations were left out, and managing and supervision were lax.
Manage the supplier(s) to your automation programme, not the other way around. The robotic machinery market is difficult to navigate. Technological maturity of the solutions varies and the need for software-hardware integration between multiple components exceeds capacities of terminal’s technology teams. Machines from different suppliers don’t talk the same language. Software modules may be specific to each supplier, but not completely tested against the whole ecosystem of the buyer. Don’t count on the individual supplier(s) to help you bring it all together and perform optimally. As soon as they run through their specific punch list, they will sign off, and turn their attention to other projects.
Prepare your workforce accordingly. Simulate and test the new way of working in the run up to go-live. Especially if you decide on semi automation and keep the humans in the loop of the equipment operations, the human operators must learn to control the robotic equipment working from an off-site video room instead of sitting in the cabins of the machines. Many jobs will change dramatically from the manual handling work and will impact how we supervise, maintain quality control, and troubleshoot. The last thing you want to see is the human switching off the automation and falling back on manual interventions slowing down the cycle of the machine and the adjacent machines in the chain of the container move.
Modify your technical services processes and skillsets before, not after, automation goes-live. There will still exist the need to dispatch technicians to the automated machines. But prior to any dispatch, sensing and fixing trouble is going to be a combination of mechanical, electrical and digital diagnostics skills. Taking care of the equipment uptime and extending its useful life are very different in this new mechanical-digital machine ecosystem.
