Kalmar award in port challenge

The NGCP Challenge, organised by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) and the Singapore Maritime Institute, aimed to identify innovative ideas on how to plan, design and operate the next generation of container ports to exemplify performance, productivity and sustainability.

Kalmar’s design centred around an underground transportation system to separate the transhipment container movement away from the vessel operation to make operations more efficient. All of the equipment was electrical creating no CO2 emissions.

Frank Kho, vice president, offering development, Kalmar, told Port Strategy: “In this challenge, Kalmar had to thoroughly understand the drivers of terminal operators. The key is to understand what are the most important aspects to make their business successful, what is the importance of sustainability in a terminal operation and where is the industry heading.”

He said to PS that these learnings will support Kalmar’s thinking and discussions on solutions and products “needed for our customers in the terminal industry in the near future.”

Kalmar’s entry was prepared in close collaboration with Singapore Nanyang Technological University, APL Co Ltd, Fraunhofer IDM@NTU and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

In addition to Kalmar’s proposal, six others were shortlisted from a total of 56 submissions from 25 countries. The grand prize of US$1m was awarded to a team from the National University of Singapore, Shanghai Maritime University and Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company Ltd.

Up to S$5m (US$4.3m) has been set aside by the organisers for further research and development of various worthy concepts arising from the Challenge.