Dynamic berth and crane planning at a 2.4M TEU terminal

Problem

Berth windows were set a week ahead and adjusted by phone. Roughly one vessel in three arrived outside its window, and each re-plan took the planning desk two to three hours, during which cranes and yard crews waited for instructions.

Approach

We worked with the planning desk and the control tower for six weeks before writing any automation, mapping which re-planning decisions were rules and which were judgement.

• Live ETA ingestion from AIS and agent messages, with confidence bands rather than single times.
• An optimisation engine that proposes a new berth and crane sequence within seconds, respecting draft, crane reach and yard constraints.
• Planner approval on every change, and automatic updates to the terminal operating system and truck appointment slots once approved.

Result

Planners moved from building the plan to supervising it. The control tower now handles a typical day’s disruptions with a handful of approvals.

Results