Hamburg publishes digital insight for ports

‘Digitalization of Seaports – Visions of the Future’ was published by Hamburg Port Authority (HPA) and Fraunhofer Center For Maritime Logistics And Services, to provide the seaports industry with a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis of the digital landscape.

Dr Sebastian Saxe, chief digital officer of Hamburg Port Authority, said: “Decision-makers within the maritime industry and the wider supply chain need answers to the looming question on what are the opportunities that the digital shift offers seaports and to which of the innumerable possibilities attributed to digitalization are best suited to provide much-needed efficiency gains.”

The book highlights that while digitalization has enormous potential for making maritime supply chains more efficient, flexible, and agile, it also has the potential to disrupt. This is because it allows new vendors from other sectors to implement disruptive business models that might make existing processes, products, and services superfluous, the report points out.

The book states that port authorities are in a unique position to play a pivotal role in leveraging digitalization, as they are custodians of the maritime nodes in the global supply chain and are being increasingly relied upon by port end-users and modal operators to perform the function of coordinators and communicators in their respective port communities.

HPA aims to explore and implement digital strategies which address the wider challenges of increasing visibility and velocity in the maritime supply chain. It is hoped the book can facilitate the exploration of future port developments and prompt debate amongst stakeholders.