Diving off the TOS springboard

When Navis leader Benoit de la Tour first took to the stage at this year’s NavisWorld conference it was to join a troupe of beat boxers sporting black t-shirts with the names of different stakeholders emblazoned on their tops. Representing the coming together of siloed parts of the container supply chain, ‘container’, ‘terminal’ etc repeatedly announced their roles while weaving through the audience with increasing ferocity until they crescendoed in harmony on the stage.

Gamely clapping along, Mr de la Tour used the end of the performance to open the bi-annual Navis user group conference and sagely noted that “behind every great performance is a great team”.

As one of the industry’s largest terminal operating system providers, Navis is already a household name in the industry. But it has moved well beyond its humble TOS environs over the past few years.

“We build software that makes users and companies more efficient. But it is not just about software; it is about empowering people and users to make the most out of our software,” explained Mr de la Tour. “We understand that we have thousands of users around the world and we have a responsibility to support them.”

Speaking at the event, he went on to say that Navis is investing in product improvement, enriching its product portfolio with more value-added solutions, as well as adding new products.

Referring to a McKinsey report, Mr de la Tour noted the prediction that 50% of any new terminal capacity over the next five years will be automated. Consequently, Navis is investing heavily in making its automation solutions smarter. Meanwhile, investments in its general cargo option will make it more flexible; investments in its rail solution aim to make that more intelligent and scalable; and its XVELA brand will be rolling out a new berth management module. For carriers, Navis is working on a high performance stowage solution and is adding more features to its Blue Tracker, including comprehensive carbon tracking reports and linking vessel performance with cargo optimisation.

Looking at its roadmap going forward, there’s investment committed to the ubiquitous N4 platform through to 1H 2020 as well as a focus on optimisation and automation of autonomous trucks. There is also a drive to make the control room as efficient as possible.

Config head-start

Another new innovation sees Navis launching a standards program to give new terminals implementing its software a ‘head-start’ by minimising the number of decisions which need to be taken when configuring.

Through the use of ‘blueprints’, terminals will be able to use standard configurations for options that do not offer any competitive advantage. To aim is to give terminals more time to focus on “high value innovations”, said Floris Vernooij, senior product manager at Navis.

“We need to do more with what we have on ever fewer resources,” he said. “We can standardise certain business processes to achieve faster implementation. We can leverage best practices and known solutions so that we don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time.” He adds that this new approach also reduces risk and allows terminals to focus on “differentiators”.

Hannah Gilberg, senior manager of documentation at Navis, explained that the blueprints currently under development will form part of Navis Smart Projects which incorporates standardised project deployment methodologies and training.

Currently, blueprints are in development for manual reachstackers, manual RTGs and N4 automations. The plan is to expand the suite over time.

“The essence for these blueprints is that they provide the base configuration for a standard terminal of a specific type,” she explained. There’s no cost to using the standards and interested terminals can start piloting the Smart Projects today.

Cyber focus

Another notable move is its strengthened focus on cyber security. Navis’ planned roll out of a Product Security Incident Response Team comes in tandem with the publication of a single document focused on security.

Michael Robinson, principal architect at Navis, said that with these two joint moves Navis is actively addressing the “worst that can happen”.

“Since we’re into more and more connections between products and third parties we have to think about how secure they are,” he says. “We have to take this extremely seriously.”

Rolled out in May, the new Product Security Incident Response Team is a “parallel processing team working on security issues”. PSIRT will follow a five-point cycle consisting of discovery, engineering analysis, mitigation/fixes, notification/advisory, and customer retrospectives.

“The big concern with any application you have is the size of the surface area that is exposed,” Mr Robinson said. That ‘surface area’ is certainly growing as Navis actively expands its portfolio – Mr Robinson’s team have a task ahead of them to ensure that exposure is kept to a minimum.