TBA is a company that is involved in
two fields foremost and originally
we are a port consultant so we have been
advising ports for the last eighteen years
in various phases of their development, design of greenfield sites
but also brownfield sites, so turning
existing ports in more modern facilities or things like process improvements
where we try to squeeze the lemon, get more out of their existing assets
and help them improve productivity. The other side of our business
is software business, so we provide tools
and real-time software products for
conventional and automated terminals.
We have most of the
automated terminals that are existing worldwide
run our software, replacing
drivers playing the eyes and hands of the driver
and fulfilled by a computer. First of all I would say automation is hot
these days, so a lot of terminals
even in countries where we didn't expect them to be interested
today, for instance China are
suddenly interested in automation. You see
a great demand for automated solutions
in order to overcome cost, in order to create
more consistent operations, more reliable operations.
Where we see challenges in automation
is various aspects
it's a big change from very manual practices
now to running robots, having the right software
integrated into all the components to a
solidly quickly working machine.
Integration is one of the key items
in a successful automation project, and with integration we mean
that all the components hardware and software
and people have to work together in a seamless way.
Now typically those components come from different sources
different vendors, different backgrounds, different locations
and they now in this one project have to work together
to create a seamless holistic system that needs to perform as well.
One of the key elements of success there
is the way the project is managed where traditionally
the relationship between terminal and a vendor
is one of supplier and customer and we need to
come to a situation where it's a partnership where you work together
with the same goal customer and the vendors
to watch this successfully go-live.
I think that overcomes a lot of integration issues
which always be there, with the right approach
project management approach you get a long way
you can actually deliver the required solutions time. So I see room for
for improvement in optimizing terminal operations
across the globe in various areas
basically terminals are always very happy to purchase equipment
and they like to see steel and if there's a lot of steel
that's a good operation. I think we're now in an era
where we need to focus on micromanaging
operations, really squeezing the lemon as we call it,
getting more out of the equipment that is available.
If you look at today's productivities - quay cranes
RTG's, terminal trucks, it's typically less than 50 percent
of what they actually could produce.
So we should not be looking into making that equipment faster,
we should be looking into using the equipment
more intelligently. By using
more of the software that's typically already available, but poorly utilized.
Tools like the TOS (terminal operating system) equipment pooling that is provided
intelligent yard strategies, intelligent equipment
deployment strategies, you can easily, and we have
shown that in the past, you can easily improve
cost-efficient at terminals to 15 and 25%.
With returns on investments within
six months for such projects, so very attractive,
very high return and
therefore very successful. We have of course
various products in the pipeline to help terminals
improve their productivity and I want to mention two.
First of all we have our yard crane scheduler, a tool that basically
allows you to intelligently place
your yard cranes inside the yard. Typically this is done by a human
today, or multiple humans, and typically they're firefighting,
this tool avoids that, but proactively
makes sure that the equipments in the right place
at the right time for the yard crane scheduler.
Another product that I would like to mention and some customers
even call it the 'Holy Grail' it has been mentioned,
to me earlier today by one of the customers
is what we call plan validation, and it's basically
the ability before you operate
to very quickly simulate your plans
for the upcoming hours, and see whether this plan can be improved.
So basically you make a plan to break the vessel to operate some housekeeping
to
handle your gate, and check before hand,
superfast, whether this plan fits
your current situation and whether you can do something about it.
Both products I expect a lot and a lot of return for
our customers.