Research and Technology

Widespread introduction of computers affected all forms of port activities and extended into every sector of cargo handling. A number of ports in North America and Europe introduced computers for office administration tasks, such as payroll and accounting. Several ports applied computers to the actual work of container control and cargo clearance, and they also developed their own information retrieval systems. Computers eventually were used for all aspects of port operation, and in the not-too-distant future, containerized cargo might be electronically inspected for damage, logged in by some type of electronic or laser-sensing device, coded, and recorded by computer.

One example of advanced computer technology is the development of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs). These unmanned, computer-guided, chassis-like carriers were introduced by Europe Combined Terminals BV and Sea-Land Service, Inc. in the Port of Rotterdam in 1993. An AGV is capable of performing much of the work commonly done by a driver pulling a chassis by positioning itself under the quayside gantry crane while being loaded or unloaded. When fully loaded, it proceeds to the stacking crane where the box is removed. The AGV receives directions from the terminal's Process Control System (PCS), which controls all the computerized operations at Delta/Sea-Land. The ECT-Delta/Sea-Land facility in the Port of Rotterdam cost $275 million and took ten years to complete. However, the system would be able to accommodate an increase in the terminal's capacity over the next 10 to 15 years.

A later invention is the Robotic Machine, created by Paul Dunstan, president of Robotic Container Handling Co., of Bellevue, Washington. This dockside machine consists of a rack system with a computer-controlled container handler similar to a straddle carrier that stores and unloads containers. Its biggest advantage is its design to load and unload one million cargo containers a year in a terminal area covering only 50 acres. Each custom-built machine is 2,000 feet in length and capable of processing more than 50,000 cargo containers a month and can reduce ship time in port by more than 50 percent. North American ports had often been criticized for lagging far behind international ports for container utilization per terminal acre. Singapore, for example, averages some 20,000 container moves an acre each year. (In the United States, that figure is 5,000 moves.)

In the face of continued automation and computerization throughout the marine cargo handling industry, labor unions began trying to prevent the elimination of jobs. Now the unions faced "a new, more sophisticated menace" with the industry's push toward further computerization and the introduction of robotics. Yet, employers claimed that to match their competitors, they must invest in the new equipment and advanced technology. Recognizing that reality, the ILA took the position of not blocking progress in its entirety, but instead claiming jurisdiction over the automated jobs.

During the mid-2000s the ports' progress toward automation was uneven. While most major facilities had effectively instituted optical character readers and cameras at terminal gates, which electronically read container and chassis numbers as trucks approach, only some had actually cut the number of marine clerks. Doug Tilden, CEO of Marine Terminals Corp. told The Journal of Commerce in October 2004, "There is a wide disparity in productivity among terminal operators. If all terminals were utilizing labor at the rate of the best-practice facilities, we would eliminate around 50 percent of the current labor shortages." Using optical readers, SSA Marine improved from processing 200 trucks per day per clerk to 400 trucks. The next step was expected to be the use of radio frequency identification tags, which could increase productivity to over 500 trucks per clerk per day.

In the late 2000s, Seattle-Based SSA Marine was in negotiations with crane manufacturer, China's Shanghai Zanhua Port Machinery Company to construct their ZMPC system, of "electrified guide rails to move containers throughout the yard at a terminal." SSA was at the forefront of this new technology and if all goes accordingly, "will revolutionize cargo-handling in the port industry," cited from the October 2007 issue of The Journal of Commerce.

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