Speaking exclusively to PS at TOC Europe 2018, Navis vice president and general manager for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region Chuck Schneider said that people have built up confidence in semi-automated terminals, but for fully-automated terminals, he commented: “You’ve taken an industry that’s slow to adopt new technologies with people that have been in the industry many years and asked them to pilot the space shuttle.
“Without proper training and processes, they can’t get the most out of the system.
“It’s like driving a Formula 1 racing car and never getting out of first gear.”
According to Mr Schneider, people “understand how [semi-automated terminals] work, and it’s repeatable because a lot of people have done it”. But while it’s been found that the technology for fully-automated terminals works — though “you have to stitch a lot of stuff together” — more investment in people and processes is needed.
Mr Schneider also discussed the important of accurate data in his response, claiming: “When you have people entering data into systems, you get incorrect data.
“If you want to get to common data-sharing and one source of the truth, you have to have accurate data.” Systems generated events are “good events”, he said.
“We still have work to do there, but once we have a good, common set of data, we can start building on top of that to give a complete view of a container’s journey. We don’t have that today,” he explained.
