Navis launches Terminal Intelligence Portal

Speaking to Port Strategy, Scott Fleming, vice president, professional services, Navis, said: “The industry is facing a variety of challenges including the arrival of mega-vessels, increased congestion and growth in data due to automation technology. All of these are driving the need to increase the use of data management techniques to manage productivity within the terminal.”
Navis’ new BI Portal offers out-of-the-box integration with Navis N4 and promises ”advanced operational analysis and data discovery capabilities”.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it,” said Mr. Fleming. “We’ve built the measures terminals need to manage vessel, gate and yard operations and we’ve integrated directly into N4. Within weeks the BI can be running and when you turn on the solution you instantly get over 50 reports and dashboards.”

“We know what customers want and our BI Portal means that each terminal does not have to build a solution from scratch.” Mr. Fleming acknowledged that there are many complexities with the N4 data model and choosing the right tables to mine for data can be “fairly complex”. This has meant that companies have in the past resorted to complicated Excel spreadsheets.
“Our BI portal is so needed; so many terminals are spending valuable time doing data collection, aggregation and sorting when the value add is in analysing. We think take up will be significant; early reception appears to be really good.”

Manoj Bhardwaj, director, BI Solutions, added: “As the competition among terminals increases, so too will the pressure to meet evolving customer expectations, while improving efficiency and the ability to operate profitably. To meet these challenges and stay competitive, terminal operators will need visibility into every aspect of operations enabling them to utilise their resources in the most efficient manner. This will also mean having the ability to get answers to both routine and unique with unprecedented speed. That’s where the Navis BI Portal comes in.”

In terms of costs, there is a license fee for the BI software and a “nominal” services fee for installation.

The BI Portal will be delivered to Navis customers in two phases. The initial release, available now, is offered as a stand-alone application with built-in integration for data extraction from the Navis N4 TOS. The second release, expected in Dec 2015, will provide embedded BI access from within N4, enabling TOS users seamless access to BI Portal dashboards via a single sign-on.