Pressing the button on remote control

Since the baby steps of Thamesport back in the 1990s, the automation train has toodled along at no great pace. Only a handful of passengers boarded over the following two decades – Hamburg, Virginia, Pusan all took the journey, but it certainly wasn’t standing room only.

But something has galvanised the industry into automation action. The industry is moving on from the safety of automated stacking cranes to the pioneering automation of STS cranes.

Panama’s MIT has been proudly showcasing its automated ship-to-shore crane trial for the past two years, while the industry waited for a large scale order to validate STS automation. The Maasvlakte II orders give that with bells on.

Elsewhere, Abu Dhabi’s Khalifa opening marked the first semi-automated terminal in the Middle East; no doubt full automation will soon be announced given the reluctance of ports in the region to be outdone by the neighbours.

In China, Xiamen Yuanhai Container Terminal looks set to be the country’s first automated terminal.

However, the slow uptake has not been entirely unexpected. The shipping industry as a whole is not known for its eagerness to embrace change. However there have been legitimate cash concerns that have held back the progression of automation – a fully automated terminal is not cheap and rarely a consideration for anything other than a Greenfield terminal, and one at a significant size at that.

And we have already felt some of the labour repercussions of the recent move to automation, most notably in Sydney. Talks on a new labour agreement on the US east coast are also looking at the implication of automation on labour needs.

Also, while the technology itself is there for full automation, such limited take up means that it is not fully ‘proven’ – another stumbling block.

The Massvlakte moves will certainly verify the benefits of automation once up and running and the trickle down effect of these automation developments cannot be overstated. They will provide a strong launch pad for remotely controlled operations at many more ports through proven improvements to productivity, while driving down the price for automated technology. But from here on in the speed and level of take up of full automation rests with ports sitting on the sidelines.

Let us hope that it doesn’t take another 20 years to move to automation three point zero.