Over the past half century, the shipping industry has reinvented itself time and again, ushering in containerization, larger vessels, and electronic data interchange. Despite the improvements, aspects of port operations remain firmly anchored in the past, dependent on manual and paper-based systems.
But global trade isn’t standing still. Ever-increasing vessel sizes and cargo volumes continue to pressure ports and terminals, which must keep innovating just to keep up. Operators that want to maintain a competitive edge must adopt a digital mindset and implement smart-port technologies to stay productive, customer friendly, efficient, and competitive. Progressive ports are embracing the same digital breakthroughs that are disrupting other industries. Among those disrupters: connected platforms, cloud-based services, mobile devices and apps, sensors and other Internet of Things technologies, augmented reality, autonomous transportation, blockchain technology, and big data.
At the same time, port environments have become intricate partner networks that include port authorities, terminals, shipping lines, trucking and logistics companies, and off-dock storage providers. To be truly effective, stakeholders have to do more than simply adopt these technologies on their own. Instead, they must embrace platforms and services that make it easier for stakeholders to work together to promote the efficiency of the overall ecosystem. These same platforms and services let individual partners expand their businesses without adding substantial new infrastructure or equipment. In some cases, the multistakeholder platforms also create digital-based services that can be used as new revenue sources.
Smart-port technologies’ impact can be substantial. At Germany’s Port of Hamburg, for example, wide-ranging connected-port initiatives are integral to a plan to double capacity—but not space—by 2025, simultaneously reducing operating costs for operators and logistics costs for cargo owners.
How Digital Helps Transform Ports and Terminals
Smart-port technologies are digital-based, multistakeholder systems. Port stakeholders can use these technologies to reconfigure basic functions and improve existing operations—to reengineer how work gets done—without major investments in new infrastructure and equipment. Accordingly, our review of smart-port technologies does not include traditional IT services, such as data standardization and systems integration, or systems such as terminal automation systems that serve only a single entry.
Smart technologies include systems that support basic infrastructure, as well as, for example, tools for handling cargo, managing traffic, dealing with customs, assuring safety, and monitoring energy use. Some benefit the gamut of port partners while others support specific partnerships between, for example, a port authority and terminal operators.
More: BCG.COM