Starting around the middle of March 2020, the world began shutting down and sheltering at home in an effort to reduce the potential devastation caused by the novel coronavirus COVID-19.
That opening sentence is intended for the benefit of people reading this article at some point in the future after the pandemic has receded into memory. Those reading the article in the present need no reminding because we’re all still living with the virus, the lockdowns, and the economic fallout that’s resulted.
Terminal operations have suffered their fair share. Cargo volumes fell dramatically during the height of the lockdowns, and continue to languish far below normal levels. Some terminals have cut their operating hours to four days a week. As a volume-based business, these reductions have been hugely consequential for terminal operators around the globe.
Blank sailings have become normalized, with ships frequently getting pulled from their normal port rotations. With little to no notice, this is wreaking havoc on terminal schedules. Around the middle of June 2020, it seemed the industry was seeing the bottom and would soon be trending back up, but with cases of COVID-19 rising again and international trade in limbo, uncertainty still rules the day.
When Can We Expect Demand to Bounce Back?
That’s the million-dollar question. There’s still quite a bit of disagreement on the severity of the problem and the best ways to proceed from here.
Cases are rising dramatically in the U.S. again, even as much of the rest of the world is beginning to open back up. Countries that are seeing very low infection rates may be able to return to business as usual fairly rapidly, in which case trade between those nations may begin to normalize soon.
However, the United States is a major player in global trade and it remains to be seen whether consumer demand for U.S. products will remain stagnant amid fears of spreading the virus back across the ocean. In many ways, the short term fate of terminal operations pivots on the way the U.S. responds to the latest infection waves. And of course, there’s no guarantee that as other countries return to normalcy the virus won’t reemerge.
There are simply too many unknowns still to predict when consumer demand will rebound and trade levels will renormalize. That’s why it’s crucial for terminal operators to invest in technologies that will help them weather the difficulties still to come.
Tideworks Offers Products That Will Increase Terminal Productivity, Flexibility, and Efficiency in These Uncertain Times
There’s little about the current situation that terminal operators can control. In order to keep themselves viable in the face of these unprecedented times, they need to continue increasing efficiencies as much as possible in order to build up reserves and stem the bleeding.
Tideworks has a number of products, some familiar to the industry, and some brand new that can make a marked difference for terminals and help them to operate smart. Those that make the right moves will emerge from the pandemic stronger, more resilient, and better prepared to face uncertainties. These are a few of the products terminals should consider.
Quay Manager
Quay Manager is a new product Tideworks is developing, and the timing couldn’t be better. This product will help to resolve some of the scheduling volatility that terminals are currently suffering, and will better prepare them for future challenges.
Quay Manager is a visual berth scheduler that shows the length of incoming vessels and the time each vessel is likely to be in port, alerting you to potential scheduling conflicts before they arise.
Terminal operators will be able to continually improve their current schedules, returning to normal weekly operations only when service levels absolutely require it. And with blank sailings occurring unpredictably, Quay Manager will grant terminal operators increased visibility into their current situation, allowing for better-informed scheduling decisions.
You can centralize berth information and quickly distribute it to the parties that need it. Quay Manager also provides a useful visual representation of the effect blank sailings have on your operation and by extension your customer’s operations. In short, Quay Manager will support your efforts to schedule efficiently in the face of extreme unpredictability.
Tideworks Insight
Tideworks Insight is a data platform that lets terminal operators peek behind the curtain of what’s happening at their terminal with access to real-time and historical data from across their operation.
Not only can you build detailed dashboards that reference equipment utilization rates, crane moves, gate transactions, and a host of other stock and user-created metrics, you can examine these at any level of granularity, from overall trends to the use of specific pieces of equipment within a targeted time range.
Unlike other products, you’re not limited to operational data. You can cross-reference operations with critical data from other business areas such as maintenance and financial. You can track move efficiency from a maintenance perspective, or look to optimize equipment investments based on actual usage statistics.
Including real-time and historical data, Tideworks Insight allows operators to create deep data visualizations that can illuminate hidden problems and reveal new efficiencies that were previously inaccessible. You’ll be able to make data-driven decisions that will eliminate guesswork and finely tune your operation to withstand whatever the world throws at it.
Struggling with complex data challenges that don’t align your business and leave you wondering where you can really improve your operations?
TradeLens
Mainsail 10, the latest version of our renowned TOS, now supports this blockchain-enabled digital shipping platform developed through a partnership between IBM and Maersk. We’ve integrated this revolutionary third-party software package so that our customers can benefit from its groundbreaking functionality.
TradeLens replaces costly and error-prone paper-based trade processes with a secure digital system that allows full visibility into the contents and provenance of critical documents such as certificates of origin, commercial invoices, packing lists, insurance certificates, and bills of lading.
These documents can be transmitted while ships are en route, allowing for better planning. You’ll know where the ship has been and what it’s carrying. TradeLens removes the possibility of fraud and reduces the incidence of errors significantly. Small gains in efficiency can add up over time, and TradeLens offers a number of operational enhancements that will smooth out bumps in your operation.
UTR Pooling
This is a new feature of our Traffic Control equipment dispatch system that lets you do more with less.
Classically, UTRs are assigned to a single ship-to-shore crane. This is a simple relationship to manage, but it isn’t always efficient as it creates the potential for idle time when a UTR isn’t needed.
Pooling UTRs solves this problem. Tideworks’ Traffic Control application lets you pool UTRs against multiple cranes. The software assigns the pooled UTRs to the cranes that need them most. The cranes’ needs shift dynamically, so pooling reassigns the UTRs dynamically maintaining efficiency. This means you’ll either finish work quicker or you can use fewer resources.
The fiscal and operational ramifications are obvious, but there’s an additional benefit. Fewer resources mean fewer emissions, which can contribute to a terminal’s goal of lessening its environmental impact.
TANGO – Trace and Go
This economical addition to your TOS solutions will grant you greater visibility into where your equipment and employees go using lightweight, affordable GPS modules.
It’s not intended to track containers or manage inventory. Instead, TANGO is an off-the-shelf GPS technology that, in conjunction with Tideworks Insight and Terminal View, our Tideworks 3D and 2D visualization tool, allows you to record general movements for all of your vehicles, equipment, and personnel to find bottlenecks and other inefficiencies so that you can correct them.
Like a football coach playing back film of last week’s game, you can play back movements from any time period and analyze what happened. With Terminal View you’ll have a real-time visual representation of your assets that you can rewind, and then slice up with Tideworks Insight to realize TANGO’s true potential. TANGO’s value lies in its ability to tell you where your equipment goes, what it’s doing, and how long it takes to do it. It’s a virtual eye-in-the-sky that keeps your finger on the pulse of your operation’s movements.
For example, TANGO could incorporate with Tideworks Insight to allow you to look back at a physical recording of an entire shift and analyze equipment positioning throughout the day. You’ll be able to access statistics on what areas of your yard are performing well, and what areas are heavily congested with vehicles. TANGO gives you eyes from anywhere into what’s happening in your yard, so whether your Operations team is back to functioning as normal or completely remote, you have cost-effective tools to analyze and improve yard planning.
The Pandemic Will End. Will You Be Ready to Thrive?
It’s still anyone’s guess when business and life will return to normal, and terminals are still likely to be feeling the effects of the current situation for quite some time. The best way to help see your operation through and be ready to seize new opportunities as the world emerges from COVID-19, is to take advantage of the innovative technologies Tideworks has to offer. We’re your partner through this uncertainty and a shield against the storm. Give us a call. We’ll be happy to discuss how we can help you thrive and remain competitive.
The Modern Terminal Operating System
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