Games people play
An emulation can go beyond training to show up a number of gaps in operation staff’s capabilities
TBA has recently taken its professional set up and told a number of port executives to “go play” in an interesting team-based game, a challenge that is designed to show up the holes in efficiency.
Based around the arrival of a ship needing 600 load and discharge moves, operations have to be planned and executed, right down to yard space and equipment allocation. Certainly this attitude of stretching the parameters in a game helps people who normally have as many pressures on their mind as a port does, and encourages people to “think outside the box”.
Yvo Saanen, managing director of TBA explains: “Virtual Reality Training using an emulation environment linked to the Terminal Operating System (TOS) is an ideal way to train end-users without hampering the live operation.” However, an emulation like TBA’s CONTROLS can also show up a number of gaps in operation staff’s capabilities.
Mr Saanen says that much training is typically linked to single processes, such as discharging boxes, “but this can break up when real life problems occur, especially when making TOS transitions”.
He adds: “One terminal going through a TOS conversion, for example, initially didn’t see the point of using an emulation with their new system. However, when things moved away from the original simple instruction scenarios, they found they couldn’t cope so easily.” The answer was training using an emulation built around a real operation in all its complexity: by the time they went live, the port personnel were at a “reasonable standard”, he adds.
There is another aspect to the system. Mr Saanen explains that vessel planning operations are rarely evaluated. “People usually just learn on the job”, he explains. “So they pick up everything that the senior planner does – both good and bad.” He goes on to say that on one occasion, the most senior person that came in was by far the worst out of a group. “It is difficult, you almost never get a chance to see if what you are doing is the most effective choice – together, yard and vessel planning can affect operational efficiency by as much as 20%.”
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