‘Gamers’ aren’t the answer to automation, says APMT

Speaking at TOC Europe in Rotterdam, the managing director of APMT’s fully automated Maasvlakte II terminal, said that control of remote quay cranes is “not a job for young gamers at all”.

In a candid discussion of the global operator’s experiences at its flagship Rotterdam hub, Mr Tazelaar said that this is a job for “dedicated professionals” and that, for APMT, there is a benefit to bringing in people that have had similar jobs in Maasvlakte II because “they know the business”.

But complementary to this is a move to bring in people from vertical industries, for example from the chemical sector and power plants, to encourage “a new way of thinking as a team”, said Mr Tazelaar.

“We learnt that remote operations are indeed a seismic shift, a shift from technology to users, giving the users a lot more attention,” he said. “Going forward the industry should be developed much more with those users in mind.

“What we have tried to do in Maasvlakte II is to become quite radical in terms of no silos between IT, equipment and operations. We haven’t found the golden bullet yet; this is organisational learning.”

Mr Tazelaar also predicted a rise in the employment of young professionals with an integrated systems engineering approach as an alternative to converting existing operational people to a new way of working.

“The basic challenge is technology, software and equipment, but the less easy part is organisational learning. So despite all efforts that we put into training, the real job and the real learning only starts when the commercial cargo starts to arrive,” he said.