First CHESSCON User event 2020 – A review
On 29 October, we invited interested parties and customers to our first digital user event about our CHESSCON applications. More than 20 terminal and port experts from Asia, Africa and Europe took part in the deep digital exchange via Microsoft Teams. Götz Anspach von Broecker of AIRBUS Defence & Space GmbH offered an impressive introduction with his keynote coming from space to terminals.
The future port empowered by space technology
The presentation of von Broecker gave a brief overview, how space business already influences the logistics sector with already existing standard services. And it illuminated the processes and tools used in space since decades which become now interesting in the frame of the Industry 4.0 and IOT age, even to be copied and applied by the logistic sector. Von Broecker showed that teleservice/telecontrol, global connectivity, cybersecurity and multi-user coordination, as well as “digital twin”, autonomy and robotics are applied at space. Since decades, these are available for re-use to mutual advantage of the logistics business field, too.
CHESSCON 9.0 with detailed 3D visualisation
After this, Oliver Jelsch (Director Sales and Business Development) and Horst-Dieter Kassl (CDO) from akquinet port consulting gave an overview of the new features of CHESSCON 9.0. Kassl presented the new and improved 3D objects directly in the life system. Realistic optics in the new version 9.0 include for example reflective water, new models of ships, trucks, forklifts, quay cranes and even individual car models. Also, the realistic shadows create a perfect virtualization of the terminal, which is very close to a digital twin of the operational TOS. The CHESSCON simulation tool has also been further developed in response to numerous customer requests. Here too, 3D simulations are now possible, including “in-time-moving” equipment. Customers can thus switch between 2D planning and a detailed 3D simulation. In CHESSCON Yard View, car terminals or mixed car/container stacking areas can now also be developed and visualized in 3D. The cars, vans, lorries, trucks or even tanks can be selected in detail by brand, model and type. An Automated Yard Crane Database Interface and a Crane Automation System (CAS API) were developed for Navis N4, but are also available for other TOS, too.
Granular visualizations for Eurogate
Following the presentation of CHESSCON 9.0, three power users presented how CHESSCON supports them in their organization. The first speaker was Alexander Heinemann from Eurogate. Since 2012, Eurogate has been using CHESSCON Yard View – since 2020 together with their TOS system NAVIS. Heinemann emphasized the benefits of the graphical overview of the terminal in CHESSCON Yard View. The tool is used in the daily work. With one click, selections are visible at granular level of a single row or individual containers, such as only all empty 40-foot containers. Heinemann showed how to bring such a selection into the TOS by simple copying and thus start an operation there. “The fact that you can see everything, and that CHESSCON and TOS played together so seamlessly, is the biggest advantage for Eurogate”, said Heinemann.
Simulation of dry ports for Royal Haskoning
Subsequently, Jan Kees Krom of Royal Haskoning DHV, gave a completely different insight, as his company has only been using CHESSCON Simulation since May 2020. The project objective was to simulate three dry port container terminals of a contractor in the Middle East. There, containers must be loaded between trains and external trucks using reachstackers. For this purpose, Krom developed structured input data. AKQUINET built a first simulation case on this data. From the analysis of this simulation, first improvements could be derived. After a second and third simulation, numerous terminal plans were adjusted, such as the number of reachstackers, in order to reduce the service time of the trucks and to speed up container handling.
Doing more with less – Terminal in Busan
Hoon Lee of Total Soft Bank, gave an introduction on how CHESSCON supports the development of the Busan Port Terminal. Total Soft Bank is a maritime logistics solution company which supports Busan Port Authority. The Busan Terminal faces a lowered terminal productivity due to lack of storage space. With CHESSCON simulation, Total Soft Bank helped the terminal to improve the operational efficiency. Together with AKQUINET, Total Soft Bank built up experimental environments for the terminal layout as a block relocation experiment based on Automated Cantilever RMG (A-CRMG) and a yard truck dispatching experiment. The block relocation experiment revealed that the productivity change by relocation of the blocks on the terminal layout was not as large as expected but can increase with total travel distances and more import/export/transhipment cargo volumes. The yard truck dispatching experiment showed that by improving the yard truck arrival timeliness the productivity can be increased (+11%) and the average waiting time can be decreased by 26 %. Hoon Lee recommended CHESSCON to the participants as a user-friendly and powerful system.
Acknowledgements
This year brought us with the corona pandemic radical changes effecting our everyday and business life. But this event at least showed us something positive: We are using digitization much more intensively to come together and exchange information across all national borders. We would like to thank all speakers, participants and everyone involved in the planning and organization of this great CHESSCON User event wich is planned to be available for participants of the western hemisphere in January 2021.
BY Prof. Dr. HOLGER SCHÜTT, MANAGING DIRECTOR AKQUINET PORT CONSULTING
