The implementation of equipment and process automation, has been an increasingly important topic in container terminal operations. There are important initiatives driving the market demand to concentrate on standardization; with more and more automated container terminals being implemented there is a beautiful opportunity to implement successfully more standard solutions and learn from each other. System Integration has become one of the biggest bottlenecks in successful implementation of semi and fully automated systems at terminals. There is much uncertainty around system integration. And software needs to be gradually developed and deployed with multiple vendors and with features that will ultimately take over fundamental operational areas.
What does the current environment look like for implementing automation at terminals? What is the key to enable a more professional and agile approaches on system integration? And what are the main areas that terminals will need to focus on for a consistent and repeatable automation implementation in the future?
Complexity and Technical Integration
An automated terminal operation requires many different hardware and software systems to satisfy various business needs; complexity is a natural outcome. The necessary technical integration is complex and impacts equipment, systems and people. Typical projects have more than 35 interfaces that connect different software systems and pieces of equipment. In addition, automation requires time to develop the designs and concepts that need to be well defined up front and flexible enough for iterative development and tuning.
Navis terminal operating system integration with third party technologies has proven to be a very significant necessity to meet go-live operational readiness. The number and variety of components involved in automation has created significant challenges to deploying a complete and integrated solution. Some of these challenges include:
Standard Integration Patterns
The terminal automation industry is striving for standards and generic integration patterns on interfaces and interactions, yet there is still a high rate of customization and configuration that needs to take place for each project, depending on lay-out configuration, equipment specifications, etc. The industry needs to develop a clear definition for interfaces and solution modularity to handle the ‘automation puzzle’. It also needs to align the processes that drive specifications, development, testing and deployment with clear criteria for go-live readiness.
From a technical integration perspective, Navis has a clear initiative to focus on standardization when developing products and delivering services for implementing automation at terminals. Principals to consider that will help with consistency and reliability of integration include:
TOS-ECS Integration
Dealing with the complexity of the system from TOS to ECS to the equipment is one of the major challenges that automated terminals need to deal with.
From a technology perspective, ECS software providers are taking a step forward, but the maturity of existing solutions is not where they need to be. ECS software companies are focusing on increasing their software efforts on design, architecture, testing and deployment practices and seek to standardize their efforts to reduce future integration complexity and cost.
There are several discussions taking place in this industry on ‘who is doing what function’. With the development of automated systems, Navis is focused on providing a single optimized logistics solution for both manned and automated terminals within the same technology footprint. This will serve to ease the adoption of automation and convert equipment and systems over time with less technical risk and capital investment.
The technical integration and operational interaction between TOS and ECS is fundamental. While Navis believes that ECS vendors should focus on optimizing execution and coordination of equipment, there are some important aspects to consider that will enable both TOS and ECS to perform their expected functions effectively and in an integrated fashion. This will ultimately impact operational readiness and minimize the time to value and enable consistency and repeatability when implementing automated systems at container terminals.
The Way Forward for Consistency and Repeatability
The following points are highlighted by Navis as the main drivers of the ‘way forward’:
There is a good opportunity for our industry to set standardization as a priority. Technical integration is complex and impacts equipment, systems and people. The areas of focus are well defined and the benefits on getting a clear path for consistency and repeatability for terminal operators and system providers will be huge and necessary for automation to be successful in this industry.
What does the current environment look like for implementing automation at terminals? What is the key to enable a more professional and agile approaches on system integration? And what are the main areas that terminals will need to focus on for a consistent and repeatable automation implementation in the future?
Complexity and Technical Integration
An automated terminal operation requires many different hardware and software systems to satisfy various business needs; complexity is a natural outcome. The necessary technical integration is complex and impacts equipment, systems and people. Typical projects have more than 35 interfaces that connect different software systems and pieces of equipment. In addition, automation requires time to develop the designs and concepts that need to be well defined up front and flexible enough for iterative development and tuning.
Navis terminal operating system integration with third party technologies has proven to be a very significant necessity to meet go-live operational readiness. The number and variety of components involved in automation has created significant challenges to deploying a complete and integrated solution. Some of these challenges include:
- Functional specifications and interaction schemes need to be well defined in advance. The current process involves a time consuming and prescriptive process for software development that has led to an extended period of additional testing and solution refinement after go-live.
- Generic communication channels are needed from/to TOS to/from 3rd party technologies that are clearly defined with standardized data exchange patterns organized by equipment type.
- Areas of equipment management need better definition from an operational perspective because the effort to address these areas in after the go-live has impeded operational performance significantly.
Standard Integration Patterns
The terminal automation industry is striving for standards and generic integration patterns on interfaces and interactions, yet there is still a high rate of customization and configuration that needs to take place for each project, depending on lay-out configuration, equipment specifications, etc. The industry needs to develop a clear definition for interfaces and solution modularity to handle the ‘automation puzzle’. It also needs to align the processes that drive specifications, development, testing and deployment with clear criteria for go-live readiness.
From a technical integration perspective, Navis has a clear initiative to focus on standardization when developing products and delivering services for implementing automation at terminals. Principals to consider that will help with consistency and reliability of integration include:
- The systems not only need to interface, they also need to “understand” to each other, defining clearly:
- what, when and how the different systems communicate
- the data involved in those communications
- Flexible and open architecture that will allow:
- system providers to extend their product capabilities
- better and proactive communication and interaction between systems
- A modular and de-coupled approach that will:
- improve the testing and optimization of the system integration
- provide data to analyze real operational performance
- create a long term system framework
TOS-ECS Integration
Dealing with the complexity of the system from TOS to ECS to the equipment is one of the major challenges that automated terminals need to deal with.
From a technology perspective, ECS software providers are taking a step forward, but the maturity of existing solutions is not where they need to be. ECS software companies are focusing on increasing their software efforts on design, architecture, testing and deployment practices and seek to standardize their efforts to reduce future integration complexity and cost.
There are several discussions taking place in this industry on ‘who is doing what function’. With the development of automated systems, Navis is focused on providing a single optimized logistics solution for both manned and automated terminals within the same technology footprint. This will serve to ease the adoption of automation and convert equipment and systems over time with less technical risk and capital investment.
The technical integration and operational interaction between TOS and ECS is fundamental. While Navis believes that ECS vendors should focus on optimizing execution and coordination of equipment, there are some important aspects to consider that will enable both TOS and ECS to perform their expected functions effectively and in an integrated fashion. This will ultimately impact operational readiness and minimize the time to value and enable consistency and repeatability when implementing automated systems at container terminals.
The Way Forward for Consistency and Repeatability
The following points are highlighted by Navis as the main drivers of the ‘way forward’:
- Interaction schemes: Clear definition for interface and solution modularity. Interactions between different software applications supporting container flows need to be defined upfront and well maintained to support both the basic and exceptional container flows. These interaction schemes must be defined in a modular way to gradually and consistently allow the connection of the different terminal equipment types while commissioning equipment and preparing the terminal for operations with live equipment testing.
- Accuracy of the information: System providers must find effective mechanisms to push out data from software applications. This will improve the integration, and, information congruency problems could be solved. Information from real-time planning needs to be used in a consistent way. It is crucial to keep accurate information as move-times, transfer point occupancy or drive times change.
- Data Transport Technology: Even though there are different transport mechanisms and technologies that support various communications between systems, the industry needs to promote the modern data technology and infrastructure that supports automation. While richer and more accurate data will enable real equipment intelligence, technologies providing reliability on system performance, traceability on equipment events and maintainable data consistency will be fundamental.
- Optimization: Navis opened the N4 TOS architecture to include 3rd party software optimizers to perform algorithms as an integrated part of the TOS platform. As such, the TOS is in the best position to perform job allocations utilizing a holistic view of the entire operation and leveraging the complete set of operational data and business rules to provide feedback to the planning process and an integrated approach to exception handling.
- Standardization efforts: Standardization efforts have been pursued recently by PEMA and need traction to improve software compatibility between TOS providers, equipment manufacturers, automation software providers and the end-users (i.e. terminal operators). Standardization efforts must include definition not only on the technical interfaces and on the required data to be exchanged, but also on interaction schemes by equipment type and on testing processes, and alignment of processes to deliver acceptance criteria for operational integration readiness.
- Integration Management: A more professional and agile approach to system technical integration is needed. Project management with qualified resources that know every single interface across the implementation is required. Further, collaboration between the terminal operator and multiple parties needs to have these project management counterparts involved to deploy the integrated solution.
There is a good opportunity for our industry to set standardization as a priority. Technical integration is complex and impacts equipment, systems and people. The areas of focus are well defined and the benefits on getting a clear path for consistency and repeatability for terminal operators and system providers will be huge and necessary for automation to be successful in this industry.
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