Fully automated Container Terminal
My involvement in this project started in september 2013. Although I have been a seaman in the 80's for one year I had never seen a container terminal, let alone a fully automated container terminal.
The terminal did look like a pile of sand in those days. So I started in an office in the centre of Rotterdam. Soon I learned about the Terminal Operating system, N4, which was developed by Navis, a company based in Oakland, USA and about the Equipment Control System, Teams which was developed by TBA, based in Delft, The Netherlands.
Assignment with Navis, Oakland.
In September 2013 the automation part of N4 was still under development. I had the great opportunity to go to Oakland to help with testing. This was a collaboration initiative of three Terminal Operators, which all were planning to use Navis' N4 automation for their terminals. This initiative lasted until march 2014 and helped the projects to get a good start and Navis to develop the automation part of their Terminal Operating System (TOS), N4. For me it was a kickstart into the world of terminal operations.
The Project in Rotterdam.
The next phase was about Testing, testing and testing. The project did set up 15 test environments for different test types. I was involved in all types of functional tests and performance tests, running emulations in specially prepared test environments.
During the last phases of the implementation project I did train the IT staff on the N4 and Teams product, especially on the communication between the two products.
Go Live.
The first real test vessel berthed in october 2014. Soon official vessels started visiting the terminal. In this period my main role in the project was troubleshooter. The problems we encountered were of all kinds. From database performance issues to software issues in both N4 and Teams. This did cause some sleepless nights, but in the end, with the help of the suppliers we were always able to solve the issues and keep the damage (production loss) limited.
After Go Live.
After the Go Live we regularly implemented new versions of both Teams and N4. I developed procedures and software to make fast testing and installation possible.
Analysis tool for Terminal Performance.
In september 2015 the terminal operator requested me to develop a tool that would help the Continuous Improvement team to do analysis on the performance of the Terminal. I developed a tool in .net, that registered all equipment events for a container move and presented the overview in a spreadsheet. Currently I am developing an analysis tool, that follows container handling equipment (CHE) and presents millisecond accurate data of CHE movements.
Terminal Monitoring.
I am developing several web based (bootstrap, angular 2, asp.net) graphical applications to make the performance of the terminal visible for gate, rail and vessel moves.