INNOVATION “NOW IS THE TIME”

Innovation in ports – a vague aspiration, an abstract idea, an isolated incident or a collective move forward? Felicity Landon speaks to Gadi Benmoshe, Chair of the IAPH Innovation Group and a member of its Data Collaboration Committee

Just imagine, for a moment, one port that is 100 per cent innovative and efficient. Now, prepare to be disappointed.

“It is not enough that one port will be innovative and efficient because the supply chain is comprised of all the stakeholders, in the origin port and destination port. It will be efficient only if all of us try to help each other, regardless of the competition,” says Gadi Benmoshe. “For that reason, sharing between ports is very important.”

Benmoshe chairs the IAPH Innovation Group which recently published a fact sheet guide entitled, The Mindset Shift Towards Innovation. The result of brainstorming within the group, the 20-page publication is divided into six chapters, each with a practical port example at the end.

“We decided to do a fact sheet which is direct and very easy to understand,” says Benmoshe. “It was important to show it is not just talking – it is ports already doing something.”

Port managers don’t have time to read huge publications, he says – hence the executive summary provides ten recommendations to port leadership teams on how to integrate innovation in practice.

“One important factor that came out was the importance of collaboration between ports – this is one of our targets,” he says. “Today, what happens is that a start-up wants to do a pilot or try a solution in the port. They will probably have to focus mainly on the ports in their own country. They do the pilot – but if they don’t share the results of the pilot, they are wasting time and resources. If we can share this information and do collaborating pilots, exchanging information, we can be more efficient.”

Already, the Innovation Group’s research and study has triggered innovation collaboration and exchange of experience between port members, says Benmoshe – for example, Fundación Valenciaport and Morocco’s National Ports Agency have been working together on the exchange of information.

Of the ten recommendations, perhaps a key one is this: “For an innovation approach to be fully integrated into the port’s organisation, the Chief Innovation Officer should report directly to the top management with cross-functional access to all other departments.”

Other industries have already learned this lesson, says the guide. “The innovation function should collaborate throughout all levels of the organisation. This includes top management and the board to assure that innovation is aligned with corporate strategy and obtains the right funding.”

Benmoshe says there is a very different mindset in today’s workforce compared to the previous generation – “but you have to foster it”.

“When you are building your innovations strategy in the port, you need someone dedicated to that. They should be at a high level in the hierarchy, to be heard and supported. Innovation is not only about technology – it can’t be the CIO (in this instance the Chief Information Officer) and it can’t be in addition to a day-to-day job. Innovation Officer is a full-time job.”

He would like to see trained ‘innovation agents’ in each department – from operations and mechanics all the way through to HR – who can proactively think about what innovation is needed in their area of work. “They can collect all the pain points and the innovation department can try to look for solutions to them. We are in ports – not in a university talking about theoretical solutions. We need innovation that will bring value. The next generation needs to be trained to be innovation agents and support the innovation ecosystem inside the port.”

Also, he insists, the management team must set aside time to focus on innovation specifically.

And what of those tech innovators trying to break into the ports sector? Among the associate members of the IAPH group were representatives of start-up companies and they brought some sharp feedback on port hackathons, said Benmoshe.

“Yes, start-ups want to win hackathons but they feel as if the ports doing hackathons treat them as students in a university who want to win a €5,000 prize. This is not what a start-up wants – they want a pilot and ultimately for the port to buy the product. A hackathon may be great PR, but we are looking for innovation.”

In other words, it is all very well having ‘tools for innovation’ like hackathons, pilots and proof-of-concept, but these need to be part of the bigger plan and ports should have a budget for purchasing a solution that works for them.

Ports and port authorities have, of course, varying levels of money and resources to dedicate to innovation, “but still we think that innovation is worthwhile finding”, he says. “You can do it on a different scale – you don’t need to open an innovation hub but you make plans and make a start. We believe now is the time – it is important for ports to start the journey of innovation. You can start with low-budget items but still you have to follow some rules and have someone to work on that.”

DIGITAL AND PHYSICAL

Innovation can be digital, physical, or – as in the case of Lausanne-based Aeler – a combination of both. Two key examples follow of modern innovative initiatives.

Reinventing the Container

Lausanne-based Aeler Technologies has focused on ‘reinventing’ the container. Co-Naik Londono, Co-founder, explains: “Eighty per cent of goods travel in containers and 4mTEU are produced every year. Containers have not changed for more than 60 years and this is one of the first discrepancies we saw in the market.”

Aeler, which is based at the EPFL university Innovation Park, has developed UNIT ONE, a smart container made of composites.

By switching away from steel, the company has created a container that is stronger and lighter, allowing for increased payload, says Londono. The composite provides passive insulation for the protection of cargo and an IoT system is embedded in the structure to provide real-time monitoring, linked to Aeler’s FleetManager platform.

“The platform is not meant to handle your logistics – it is just providing visibility so that customers can track what’s happening real-time,” he says.

Aeler offers ‘CaaS’ – Containers as a Service, in a leasing model that includes the smart tracking and insurance. Importantly, the UNIT ONE is compatible with standard containers with the same handling and stacking norms, says Londono.

iTERMINALS 4.0 – THREE PROJECTS

The iTerminals 4.0 project was set up to develop and test a standard digital language that allows for two-way communication between port equipment and terminals’ operations management systems.

The project’s final conference featured three innovative projects dependent on standardised data sharing.

Advanced Equipment Maintenance pilots focused on smart tyre pressure and oil monitoring at Malta Freeport: sensors, other hardware and even new wheels were installed on existing machines to enable the trials, notes Jan Willem Houwers, Senior System Engineer at Hyster-Yale.

“The change to a preventive maintenance process is by using a data-based approach to go from overview to insights,” he says. “It starts from getting the right data from the right sensor – can we monitor it real-time, and can we process it for insights?”

In the case of tyres, the goal is to prevent under or overinflation, detect and address leaks, and schedule checking and pumping. Inflation can be based on the temperature of the tyre, to achieve more precise pressure. In this way, the tech can optimise the lifetime of the tyres, he said.

“With preventative tyre maintenance, you spend less time on pumping and have less scheduled operational downtime.”

The change to a preventive oil maintenance process is based on a fusion of sampling and sensing, so that oil is changed only when needed. This should prevent equipment being run with oil that needs replacing, by flagging the event before any damage is caused, and also stop the routine throwing away of oil that still has 50 per cent of its life left. “We have been able to stretch the oil drain interval by 50 per cent on an empty container handler,” points out Houwers.

Increasing Energy Efficiency by applying dynamic container carbon footprint calculation: Ignacio Benítez Sánchez, Innovation Technician in Energy Transition and Sustainability at Fundación Valenciaport, notes the objective was “to prove that we can monitor and visualise the carbon footprint and energy efficiency signature of every container that is moved through the yard”.

Taking into account the energy sources used, KPIs were defined at terminal level (KPI on global carbon footprint per weighted tonne and/or TEU) and at service level; visualisation options included ranking machines by time of use, energy consumed, energy cost and/or energy label, with trends displayed per machine.

The pilot proved that if you have the data regarding energy, you can visualise energy efficiency and carbon footprint indicators, zoom into particular containers, areas and vessels, and evaluate trends and forecasts regarding energy use and efficiency.

Improving Operational Safety at terminals by applying virtual geofencing: Pekka Yli-Paunu, Kalmar’s Research Director, cited the case of a manual straddle carrier under the ship-to-shore crane. “There can be employees working there, checking containers, etc., so pedestrians can be next to the container when the straddle is approaching the area.”

A virtual geofencing area set-up under the STS cane could give the straddle carrier driver the ‘all clear’ to approach at full speed, or detect a person in the area and sound an alarm that the driver should wait or slow down.

The system used intelligent cameras on the crane and wheel sensors on the straddle carrier, alongside standard wifi and satellite navigation/positioning information provided via RTK Gateway link.