The main advantage of working with Tideworks to optimize your Intermodal terminal is the number of choices you have to solve your unique terminal needs and succeed. From data management solutions to 3D terminal visualization tools, Intermodal PRO ® (IPRO), our adaptable TOS solution can be layered with powerful technologies that further increase efficiencies at your terminal.
Here are the top 10 features of our base intermodal solutions, Intermodal PRO®, and Traffic Control™, chosen by Tideworks engineers and product specialists.
- Yard Allocations
- Just-In-Time (JIT) Planning
- AutoPlan
- Live Lift
- Proximity Planning
- Move Segmentation
- Highly-Intuitive Yard Inventory
- Move Prioritization
- Crane Optimization
- Automation
Intermodal PRO®
Yard Allocations
Yard Allocations is a criteria-based tool that allows the terminal staff to configure and prioritize their yard storage. Each allocation is configured with specific equipment criteria and the allocation (as well as associated yard ranges) can be enabled and disabled quickly as terminal situations change. Inbound/Outbound allocations are prioritized over storage allocations and a summary window is used to display the overall health of the allocations and their corresponding yard ranges. All containers/chassis planned to (or within) the yard using an ‘automatic’ method will use allocations. This includes Ingate to Yard, Just in Time (R>Y), and Autoflow/Flow to Yard.
Why Customers Love It
It’s a highly configurable tool with criteria that can be added/removed in the UI so the terminal only sees the information they need. Ranges can be configured to only send a certain number of containers per range before moving to the next range to alleviate yard congestion. This is especially useful in wheeled rows for terminals with a lot of in-gate traffic. IMO Class and UN Number criteria fields allow for detailed hazardous storage options, so users have the ability to control the placement of containers.
Just-In-Time (JIT) Planning
Just In Time (JIT) Planning enables you to plan inbound moves to generic grounded or wheeled locations until the final portion of the move is being worked.
Why Customers Love It
This method of planning is equally efficient as flowing all containers to find locations based on Yard Allocations but allows fine positions to remain available until the moment they are required. JIT planning provides the best location based on allocations at the time the work is being physically completed. This reduces swaps, re-planning of moves, and the need for operators to complete to locations other than planned.
AutoPlan
AutoPlan software plans outbound rail moves in a semi-automatic way based on configured planning rules by selecting the railcars to be planned, choosing a planning ruleset, and clicking the plan button. This feature is supported for yard-to-rail and rail-to-rail moves.
Why Customers Love It
Planners have an opportunity to focus more on yard placement strategy, planning rules, allocation setup, and other terminal activities rather than manually planning all outbound containers to rail.
Live Lift
Live Lift is used in conjunction with criteria-based Live Lift Allocations, allowing (matching) equipment (being in-gated) to be planned directly to rail and send the driver to a proximity-based transfer location close to the railcar planned position. Live Lift Allocations can be quickly enabled/disabled by the planner, so once the configuration is set they can be toggled on and off as needed. Live Lift Allocations are always checked prior to Yard Allocations for in-gating equipment.
Why Customers Love It
Customers experience reduced equipment moves by terminal operators and quicker time to rail load.
Proximity Planning
Proximity Planning is currently supported for RTG/RMG areas containing tracks, grounded storage, and a truck transfer lane. The desired proximity can be configured to control how much gantry is allowed when planning containers to rail (with AutoPlan/Live Lift) and from rail (in all planning modes). Ingate moves are planned in a way that distributes gate moves between WSC cranes when possible.
Why Customers Love It
Proximity planning allows for reduced crane gantry and trolley by the cranes which improves throughput. Plans to extend the proximity planning to conventional rail operations are currently on the Tideworks roadmap. With the expertise we have gained on this topic during the development of this functionality for WSC yards, we are in a good position to extend support for conventional customers in the near future.
Traffic Control™
Move Segmentation
Move segmentation allows you to see and monitor constituent segments for all container move types. Instantly visualize if a move is impeded and where and why it is obstructed. Work orders dynamically generate and update as moves are planned and executed.
Why Customers Love It
Users experience significant reductions in idle equipment times by identifying and addressing move obstructions in real-time.
Highly-Intuitive Yard Inventory
A highly-intuitive yard inventory application provides terminals the ability to easily inventory container stacks and wheeled spots, search for equipment, and update locations all from the convenience of a tablet. In the latest versions of Traffic Control, the App has been enhanced to allow Yard checks without inventory updates, drag and drop interface and improved syncing ability with Server.
Why Customers Love It
This will always allow the terminal to maintain updated inventory.
Move Prioritization
Move prioritization allows you to determine the relative importance of the different move types, ensuring what’s “hottest” is performed first. Priority is managed by various sets of rules related to Criteria and Move Profile within Yard Manager.
Why Customers Love It
Priority is a major factor in determining the order in which work is dispatched to equipment at the terminal. This allows the customer to shift focus on missions that are most critical for the given time period and enable them to return to other medium- to low-priority missions at a later time.
Crane Optimization
Crane optimization balances the workload for your most valuable assets. This optimization is available for RMG groups and considers various factors like load balancing, number of lifts per move, staging location availability within transfer lane, move priority, and availability of pre-staged chassis to minimize UTR hauls to and from.
Why Customers Love It
Dynamic Crane Divisions can be controlled manually or automatically, ensures that each move is the right move selected to be worked on by the Crane.
Automation
Move automation and support of automated equipment – This is achieved by providing vendor-agnostic messaging specification for communication with third-party systems, like PDS (Position Detection System), ECS (Equipment Configuration System), and Safety Zones. This feature introduces the ability for terminals to have Remote Operation Stations that integrate Traffic Control Clients with Automatic Cranes.
Why Customers Love It
With this feature, you can plan your operations, assign equipment, and let the system take care of the rest.
Contact Tideworks to schedule a meeting today
Interested in learning how these features and more can be applied at your intermodal terminal?
