Marrying safety and efficiency

摘要

APM Terminals in Rotterdam has opened its "container terminal of the future" with the aggressive prediction that Maasvlakte Ⅱ will improve vessel productivity by 40%. The value-added of the 212-acre automated operation is that worker safety and the environment will also benefit. "Speed, safety, and the environment are the main factors," Henk De Groot, APM's chief operating officer, told P&H. Big ships are driving the need for automation at container terminals in major gateway ports such as Rotterdam, New York-New Jersey, and Los Angeles-Long Beach. Terminals that handle 1 million teu or more a year must provide consistent, reliable, and uninterrupted performance. Only machines can meet those qualifications, De Groot used Maasvlakte Ⅱ's automated ship-to-shore (quay) crane operations as an example. A skilled longshoreman at a gateway port can produce 30 container moves per hour at his or her "best time of the day", he said. However, as the shift wears on, productivity can erode due to fatigue or other factors. An automated crane may likewise do 30 moves per hour, but will perform at that level throughout the day. APM's goal for its cranes is to beat the manually operated cranes'average performance by 50%, said De Groot. Also, unlike traditional quay cranes in which the operator bends over and looks down at the containers as they are lifted off and on the vessel, the automated crane is operated remotely from a tower. The operator oversees the operation in front of a computer, and vision is not distorted by wind, rain, or fog.