Beating bottlenecks

Critics of statistics would say that they are nothing more than a bunch of numbers looking for an argument.

But when such famous historical figures as Mark Twain and Benjamin Disraeli denounced them with those quotations so quotable that they’ve passed into everyday use, neither was trying to operate a busy container terminal.
Had they been, they might have taken a different view.

The “bunch of numbers” that makes up statistics is merely part of a much larger bunch of numbers – the information that, as an entity, forms the key to having no bottlenecks at the gate of a terminal.

“The causes of gate bottlenecks all boil down to bad information,” says Michael Schwank, president of software provider Tideworks Technology. “What we’ve noticed over the years is that when people come at the wrong time with the wrong information, there’s going to be a problem.”

Ports geographically as far apart as Liverpool and Vancouver would agree. Liverpool has stumped up more than £1m ($1.39m) for a sophisticated IT system from Zebra. As a result, it has seen an immediate effect on its gate activity, with 95% of trucks processed through the port in less than an hour, and 60% of trucks in and out in half that time, which they claim is the best performance in the UK.

In Vancouver, on the other hand, bottleneck issues at Port Metro, which handles more boxes than all other Canadian ports combined, are causing serious issues. The port fears that American west coast rivals such as Seattle, Los Angeles and Long Beach are snapping at its heels. Why? Only a quarter of the boxes arriving in Vancouver make the journey from ship to railway wagon in three days, whilst a quarter wait for six days or more. The port aspires to have 90% of its boxes en route to customers in less than three days.

The impact of bottlenecking – albeit not just at ports, but a bottleneck is a bottleneck, and the point thus remains valid – can be judged by predictions for India, which is seeking to triple its port capacity within a decade. Failure to get the infrastructure right, according to McKinsey & Co, could put a squeeze on economic growth. They predict it could be costing more than 1% of growth in the country’s economy by 2017.

As far as port operators are concerned, it’s important to realise that perceived gate bottlenecks should not be considered in isolation, according to Mr Schwank. “Don’t be in a hurry to blame bottlenecks on what’s happening at the gate,” he says.

His advice is to take a holistic view of the whole terminal, which he says is “the ship that never sails”. Although it will never put to sea, it should be operated in just the same way as a ship, with cargoes being moved on and off its “deck” in the most efficient manner possible.

“Look around the yard, and optimise the way it works,” he says. “Segregate and sort cargoes. Don’t have someone rushing off with a box and putting it in the far corner of the yard, and stacking another six on top of it, if it needs to go out tomorrow. Make it hard for people to make a silly move like that.

“And you won’t know if you have that right until you have lots of trucks coming.”

Having a very efficient gate operation might stand a port’s perception of its bottlenecks on its head, by highlighting that the way the terminal is being operated is a bottleneck in itself. “You have to make sure the terminal can keep up with the gate, and make sure the strategy and planning are right. You may not see that it’s wrong until you’ve speeded up the gate, and you have lots of trucks coming. Look at the way you move those internal cargoes,” says Mr Schwank.
“A terminal can do so much to make containers available, such as fitting them with PIN numbers. You can look at applying technology that can increase the velocity of activity, by tracking trucks with ANPR or RFID tagging. It all eliminates the keystrokes that do the same thing.”

And that’s why having the right information, and having it live, is so important, because it is the means to flag up when something going wrong, and prevent a nonsensical move from being made in the first place.

“It’s no good having information the day after it’s happened,” he says. “Looking at what happened yesterday isn’t going to help, because it’s over. You shrug and say ‘we had a bad day’, and you put it into the filing cabinet and get on with today. If you have the information whilst the day is still being bad, then you have a chance to make it better.”

The flow of information is important too, and what keeps the wheels of a port turning. “Trucks are like taxis. If they’re not moving, they’re not earning,” says Mr Schwank. “It’s in everyone’s interests to see that they are kept on the move.”
Naturally, “everyone” includes the truck dispatchers, because they’re likely to be keener than most to keep trucks on the move. Providing whatever information is necessary for a quick turnaround can help a port operator to pick out the less efficient haulage companies, and bring them up to speed.

Mr Schwank says: “Look closely at turn times. If the average is 20 or 30 minutes, watch which people exceed that. If ABC Trucking is taking an hour when other people are taking less than half that, you’ll not only be able to see it but you’ll be able to drill down through the data and find out what’s making them take longer. Once you know, you can put it right.”