Revolution or evolution? What will the business of shipping and ports look like 10 years from now? The next chapter in our week-long look at the future of the industry, published in association with MacGregor.
How will the business of cargo flow and handling change over the next 10 years? It’s a question Maritime CEO has posed to hundreds of shipping executives in recent months. Some have BladeRunner-esque visions of the ship/port interface; others are more cautious about the speed of change.
The twin focus on market share and economies of scale has gone
For Graham Porter, the famous co-founder of Seaspan and now head of Tiger Group Investments, the biggest change coming is in automatic trucking, likely in combination with battery propulsion.....MUCH MORE
“This will redefine the logistics of the world,” Porter argues in conversation with Maritime CEO. “Efficiencies will improve dramatically, essentially highway trains will come about, with cargo moving 24 hours a day as there will be no limiting human driver and mandatory rest breaks. It will all be optimised to avoid rush hours. This could potentially redefine which ports are winners, displacing some of the old names.”
Phil Curran, vice president at G2 Ocean, says changes in cargo handling methods over the next 10 years will be driven by technology improvements.
“As technology improves and becomes less expensive and more accessible, we are expecting many opportunities in the breakbulk sector for improved, efficient automation, especially in operations onshore,” Curran says.
As an example, Curran expects shipping companies to use Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) technology increasingly to monitor cargo from the first to the last mile.
“Tagging with RFIDs will be commonplace and will not only improve the visibility of cargo transport along a shipment journey but also help to improve our supply chain management,” Curran says.
Coordinated improvements
Kris Kosmala, a cargo handling expert and regular Maritime CEO columnist, says it is vital for the industry as a whole to work together to drive efficiencies over the coming decade.
“Value is created out of coordinated improvements across all port-vessel and port-cargo touch points,” Kosmala reminds readers.
But the physical aspect of mooring systems does not create sufficient value nor competitive differentiation. There is a need, Kosmala reckons, for predictive and optimisation software to be deployed above the physical interface that would aid terminal mooring crew in both tactical planning (where and how to position vessel at the quay in advance of the arrival/departure), as well as operational decisions on securing/releasing the vessel on the day of its actual arrival/departure in port.Value is created out of coordinated improvements across all port-vessel and port-cargo touch pointsLooking at specific touch points reveals where the improvements and changes will be happening over the next 10 years. In the physical port-vessel interface area Kosmala reckons we will see progressive deployment of vessel mooring solutions such as smart bollards and smart quay walls based on sensors and movement suppression technology between the bollard and the vessel.
Predictive maintenance
“The next 10 years will bring increasing sophistication of sensors and also sophistication of software capable of reading data from the sensors and predicting equipment servicing needs and optimising repairs and maintenance on the shore and ship equipment,” Kosmala suggests....
Hmmm...
I'm going to have to seriously step up my game.
"How Technology is Changing the Spice Trade"
Change is hard.
I'm still mentally into the old-timey combination shipping news/stock market report:
Dutch East India Company (VOC)
$64.98 (+$13.84) (+27.1%) Shares in the spice purveyor soared on word that the three sturdy galleons dispatched two years afore had been sighted off the coast of Cape Verde, returning from their dangerous voyage to the exotic Orient with their casks brimful of redolent cinnamon, cardamom, and mysteriously intoxicating curried powder.Okay, that's actually America's Finest News Source.
note: link to The Onion rotted, apparently un-Googleable as well. I was dreaming when I wrote this, forgive me if it goes astray.
