Sergey Furseev, Sales Manager of SOLVO, gave a lecture to the students of the Graduate School of Corporate Management at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) and Russian Foreign Trade Academy (RFTA). Students learned how Terminal Operation Systems (TOS) could help clean up storage logistics and make it more efficient.
The lecture took place within the framework of the 5th annual business seminar "TLS of the region: St. Petersburg – the sea gate of Russia", organized by the International Logistic Academy. Students of universities cooperating with the International Logistic Academy undergo internships in Europe and Russia, visit logistics companies to get to know the work of the industry in practice.
“Digitalization is one of the main trends in logistics today. Therefore, it is also useful for students to communicate with representatives of companies from related industries, including IT. We have known the SOLVO team for a long time. The company is a multiple winner of the annual national award "Logistics of the Year" from the International Academy of Logistics. We have been organizing a competition for this award for over 10 years. So, we didn't even have any doubts about which IT company to turn to for training our students”, said Yulia Tityukhina, General Director of the International Logistic Academy.
The next day after the lecture, the student group was to visit the Yanino Logistic Park – a modern multifunctional logistics complex near St. Petersburg. It is an inland terminal for the leading ports of North-West Russia. Therefore, Sergey Furseev introduced the students to the architecture and basic modules of the Solvo.TOS system for marine and inland container terminal management. The SOLVO expert explained in simple words and with real life examples what business tasks the system helped to solve, how it helped to save resources, made the company's work more efficient and, as a result, increased business profitability.
For example, vessel planning avoids disorganization with transit containers.
“This happens in practice, when some of the containers are sent by ship in transit. It is important not to accidentally unload them or send them by mistake instead of another cargo. If the ship left with the wrong containers, then this error is found out already in the next port along the course of the ship”, Sergey gave an example. “The Solvo.TOS system receives an input document on the cargo from a vessel at sea and draws up a plan for cargo handling operations so that only the necessary containers are unloaded, considering which ones will be transit, which will need to be moved for further shipment by rail, by trucks, and which ones to put in the storage area. Another module of the Solvo.TOS system organizes the storage area and plans how to place containers in order to minimize the number of their unnecessary movements – stowing”.
The SOLVO expert told the students how the TOS-system checked the time spent on cargo handling operations with vessels. Excessive time for such operations can bring a significant loss of profit to the terminal. The automation system analyzes this parameter, and if it becomes clear that the equipment and people do not meet the specified deadlines, it makes this task a priority. The technician and people who carried less priority tasks join to solve this task in order to have time to meet all the deadlines.
Solvo.TOS conducts such economically important calculations for the company as:
- drawing up a ship plan for optimal placement of containers,
- uniform distribution of the equipment workload to increase its durability,
- accounting of all arriving containers and vehicles using OCR technologies and monitoring of cargo movements,
- informing customers about the status of the cargo via the web portal,
- gate and trucks management to avoid queues at the entrance to the terminal.
Solvo.TOS controls even such unobvious at first sight things as seasonality in the operation of load handling equipment. For example, a reach stacker can take a container from the second row in summer, but cannot do it in winter because it is slippery. The system receives data on the characteristics of each unit of equipment and sets only such tasks that can be accomplished.
In addition to managing terminal operations, Solvo.TOS keeps records of commercial document flow. The system integrates with various software platforms both within a given company and with external programs and systems of other participants in the supply chain.
“This is all very interesting. Today I have learned about TOS systems for the first time. I already got acquainted with Warehouse Management Systems when I was doing an internship at logistics companies. It's great when a person, a specific employee, no longer needs to take responsibility for the decisions made. Technologies solve complex organizational and management problems using analysis and calculation, which reduces the risk of the human factor and making the wrong decisions. Transparency and accountability of all processes is increasing”, Daniil Lebedev, a fourth-year undergraduate student at the Higher School of Economics, RANEPA, shared his impressions after the lecture.
“I previously knew about TMS systems and now I also know that they can integrate with WMS and TOS. Such joint work helps to more efficiently build cargo delivery processes. It is very convenient,” notes another the fourth-year student Danila Vlasov.
Sergey Furseev thanked the students for their interest in the lecture, noting that speed and accuracy are two criteria that are decisive in modern logistics and make companies competitive.
