Case Study: British Columbia Marine Terminal drastically increases speed and accuracy of Yard, Rail, and Vessel Checks thanks to ruggedized hand-held devices and unique software solution from NJE Consulting.

 

Fraser Surrey Docks (FSD), located in the Greater Vancouver area of Surrey, British Columbia is a world-class multi-purpose marine terminal that handles over 400 deep-sea vessels annually, using  its 7 berths. In 2004, FSD handled more than 320,000 TEU’s of containers.

 

Maintaining accurate locations of such a large number of containers in FSD’s 53-hectare yard provided a significant challenge. “Using the old pen-and-paper method to check container locations, checkers would have to go to the office, print and organize a 100+ page report, drive back to the yard, and begin verifying actual container locations against the data in the Cargo Management System, writing discrepancies by hand on the printed report,” says Arthur Nagra, FSD Application Specialist. “They would then have to drive back to the office, and

Fraser Surrey Docks is the largest facility of its kind on the west coast of North America

enter the information back into the desktop workstation. As a result of this cumbersome process, the data was nowhere near real-time, and its accuracy suffered,” continues Nagra. The end result was that operations suffered, because the sophisticated software used by FSD to plan yard operations could only be as good as the data with which it was presented.

 

To overcome these challenges, Fraser Surrey Docks turned to ruggedized hand-held device manufacturer LXE, and Vancouver-based hand-held application specialist, NJE Consulting Inc. for help. The result: a specially-designed application that automates most data-collection tasks in the yard— the Yard Management Tool.

“NJE’s Yard Management Tool has allowed us to double the speed of container block-checks”

 

Kurt Slocombe, FSD Yard Planner

“NJE’s Yard Management Tool has allowed us to double the speed of container block-checks and to achieve Real-Time Container Location Accuracy throughout our yard,” says Kurt Slocombe, FSD Yard Planner.

 

Checkers armed with LXE’s MX3X ruggedized hand-held terminals now update container locations using an intuitive drag-and-drop interface while patrolling the yard. The updates are transmitted through FSD’s WiFi wireless network to a central server, and become instantly visible in the Cargo Management System software. Furthermore, yard staff can now instantly access detailed records about any container, look at a list of containers

requiring special attention, or view any parameter of interest for all containers on a given block. For example, checkers can now verify at a glance that all containers in a given block are destined for the same voyage.

 

The success and enthusiastic user-acceptance of the FSD Yard Management Tool can be, in large part, attributed to NJE Consulting’s particular expertise in creating state-of-the-art software for mobile devices in an industrial setting. “Software development for hand-held devices presents a unique set of challenges—one with which NJE is intimately familiar with,” says Bartek Muszynski, President of NJE Consulting. “For example, the FSD Yard Management Tool was carefully designed to operate both on-line, while connected to the wireless network, and off-line. This means that users can continue to use the device even in areas of the yard where the wireless network is not reliable. The existence of such ‘dead-spots’ is normal for wide-scale WiFi deployments, but it presents special software development

challenges that few can properly handle,” says Muszynski.

 

Overall, the Yard Management Tool project was executed under a very tight schedule, and guided by a spirit of collaboration and co-operation between FSD and NJE. "NJE was extremely pro-active in supporting FSD during the design of the Yard Management Tool,” says FSD IT Implementation Manager, Terry Hayes. “NJE

responded well to our aggressive timeframe, and was supportive and prompt when we encountered issues that required changes during development & deployment phases. NJE displayed professionalism in taking a key role with FSD and another integration vendor, resolving detailed technical issues and troubleshooting integration issues,” Hayes concludes.

 

FSD is already planning a suite of follow-on applications for the LXE hand-held devices, building on the success of the Yard Management Tool. New applications planned for the near future include gate management, reefer check, and hazardous materials check. According to Hayes: “[We are headings towards] Integrated Dock Operations executed through Radio-Frequency devices, and are counting on a significant overall efficiency improvement throughout our operations.”

 

 

Conclusion

 

Marine terminals can realize very substantial gains through the use of wireless hand-held devices in their yard operations; but to achieve this goal, specialized software development expertise is required, such as that possessed by mobile device specialist, NJE Consulting of Richmond, BC.

 

 

 

For more information, please contact: info@nje-rfid.com.
Phone: 604-295-0519

To update a container location, users merely drag a ‘container’ rectangle to its appropriate location. Response-time is instantaneous.

Arthur Nagra testing the Yard Management Tool. Updating container locations in Real-Time means more accurate yard planning and improved overall efficiency.