Modul, I-Modal Container Terminal

Solvo.CTMS Controls Operations at Modul Terminal Transportation and Logistics Complex

Terminal Specifications

• Overall Area: 12 ha
• Overall Container Terminal Area: 7.2 ha
• Container Storage Site Area: 1.35 ha
• Container Turnover: 100,000 TEU
• Empty containers сapacity: 8,000 TEU
• Loaded containers сapacity: 1,100 TEU
• Refrigerated containers сapacity: 120 items
• Ground Storage Area for General Cargoes and Container Loading/Unloading: 20,000 sq.m
• Roofed Storage Area for General Cargoes: 2,400 sq.m
• Six Railroad Branches Overall Length: 2,500 running m

Machinery

• 5 KALMAR, Valmet, and Toyota container loaders with hoisting capacity ranging 10 to 45 t
• 4 Toyota reloaders with hoisting capacity ranging 1.5 to 2.5 t
• 1 Terberg prime mover
• 1 MTZ 80 tractor
• 1 ZIL cleaning car

«The deployment of Solvo.CTMS allowed us to minimize our costs and down-time in the Terminal operation and to increase Terminal profitability. We are budgeting further improvements to the system to extend the Terminal automated equipment coverage and processes»

– Tymoshenko, S. O.,
Executive Director of Module Terminal

Pre-Deployment State

Module Inc. provides a wide range of transportation and forwarding services: sea, railroad, motor, and multimodal transport operations, terminal operations for seaports of different cities, such as Saint Petersburg, Tolyatti, Tallinn, Muuga, Novorossiisk, Astrakhan and Ilchevsk. They also provide services for formal registration and transport of customs cargoes.

The company manages customer cargos at every stage of their movement and can efficiently combine all types of transportation modes. In doing this, Module dispatches its own terminals and transportation means, as well as managing third-party agents’ and partners’ infrastructures both domestically and outside of Russia.

The Module Terminal transportation and logistics complex is located in Saint Petersburg and is part of Module Inc.

In an effort to increase performance, the Module administration made a decision to automate the Module Terminal. This task required the selection of an integral solution capable of operative control of the container storage site, taking into account the necessity of performing storage and processing operations with empty containers.

Solution

To find an appropriate solution, Module considered several different automation systems for similar enterprises. Sovlo.CTMS was chosen as the solution because of its ideal fit to the requirements, and because of Solvo’s extensive experience working with ports in Russia, CIS and the Baltic Countries.

A large aspect of the project was the implementation of a solution for integrating the automation system with the proprietary documentation circulation system to create an combined information-control space.

The contract was signed in August 2008. In September 2009, the full deployment of the customized system dedicated to dry terminals control was completed.

Technologies

While developing the customized version of Solvo.CTMS, Solvo's engineers made efforts to take into account the specific technological features inherent to dry terminals.

The distinguishing component of the Module Terminal transportation and logistics complex’s services is it’s large volume of operations with empty containers. This means that different types of machinery must be capable of simultaneous assignment to the same tasks. For example, both racking container loaders and reach-stackers are used to manipulate empty containers. The designed information system optimally assigns tasks between different types of machinery.

The system allows for control of dry containers across many parameters, such as container type, length, owner, etc., at the time of arrival to the terminal, regardless of the mode of transportation (car, train, etc.). In addition to the container accessibility parameters, such as storage tier, shifts minimization, reloading machinery runs, etc., the time of a container's stay at the terminal is controlled, which allows even distribution of the use of and wear-and-tear on containers.

Another feature of the Module terminal is the handling and management of damaged containers. In this regard, Solvo.CTMS allows for the registration of damaged containers and the description of their condition. Depending on whether there is a contract for container repairs with a counter-agent or not, the control system automatically sends the vehicle with the damaged container to either the repair zone or the warehouse for necessary actions.

The deployment of Solvo.CTMS resulted in more optimized use of machinery and increased speed of container processing. For example, when a container is placed to a target cell or when cells of a stack's row are assigned to motor vehicle processing, the control system sends a task to the driver's radioterminal. The task specifies the cell's address and prompts the driver as to what side he should approach the stack from, or designates exactly where he should park the vehicle for processing.

Results

The deployment of Solvo.CTMS at the Module Terminal transportation and logistics complex led to the optimization of technology processes control at the enterprise. The container processing speed increased and the use of machinery became more rational. Additionally, as a result of these improvements overall facility maintenance costs were reduced.

Module Terminal can now provide its customers with exact data on their cargoes and containers, thanks to the control systems capabilities of adjusting and rapidly reacting to changes in the current operative situation at the terminal and to customers' needs.

Plans for Future

There are several areas of prospective future cooperation between Module Terminal and Solvo, including further improvement of the software module for analytics and statistics reporting, development of a technology for terminal capacity workload assessment with regard to container types and container tier numbers, and other tasks to enhance the terminal’s operation performance.