Navis, a part of Cargotec Corporation, announced that Qingdao New Qianwan Container Terminal Co., Ltd (QQCTN), Asia’s first fully automated terminal, successfully implemented the Navis N4 terminal system under phase one of its larger automation project.
QQCTN, located in Qingdao, China, constructed its fully automated terminal in three and half years and went live commercially with its first deep-sea vessel call, on May 11, 2017. The first vessel to pass through the terminal was container ship COSCO France, which brought 13,386 TEUs and executed nearly 4,000 container exchanges at QQCTN.
In particular, the operation included seven Ship-to-Shore (STS) cranes and for the first call with COSCO France, QQCTN achieved an average crane productivity of 26.1 moves per hour. The terminal will have the capacity to berth some of the largest container ships in the world—up to 24,000 TEUs—and will strive to achieve more than 40 moves per hour with an utilized yard.
“Continued close cooperation with Navis will push QQCTN to a better future that we are confident will raise the bar for modern terminal operations, performance and efficiency across the ocean supply chain”, said Zhang Liangang, General Manager, QQCTN.
The terminal implemented N4 to leverage advanced functionality for automated equipment, including optimized scheduling and dispatching, and analytics. Navis also supports dynamic interfaces to the Equipment Control System (ECS) and Qingdao’s in-house Terminal Management System (TMS) interfacing with local applications such as billing and vessel scheduling.
In addition to the Navis software, QQCTN includes remote control Ship-to-Shore (STS) cranes, Automated Stacking Cranes (ASC), Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV), Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Automatic Twistlock Handling Machines.
The automation project consists of three phases. The first phase covers two berths with 1.5 million TEU, while additional phases plan to automate a total of six berths and support 5.2 million TEUs in the future.
“The collaboration between Navis N4 and QQCTN demonstrates that ‘PartnerShipping for Performance’ can produce exceptional results from the TOS system,” said Mark Welles, Vice President and General Manager, Asia-Pacific, Navis. “QQCTN has achieved unprecedented operational productivity since beginning commercial operations, and is quickly proving to be one of the most advanced and capable container terminals in the world.”