Marine terminals are huge, sprawling yards filled with thousands of containers. Until now, tracking containers has often been a pen and paper process prone to errors and delays.
"Solving a Rubik's Cube seems simple compared to keeping track of the stacks and stacks of containers moving through marine terminal yards today," says Ed DeNike, chief operating officer of SSA Terminals.
"This puzzle is getting more and more difficult to solve. With imports expected to double by 2010, marine terminal operators have no choice but to invest in technology to try to keep up."
Now WhereNet provides constant visibility and status information about every container, no matter where it moves across these often-congested marine terminals.
The firm's Marine Terminal Solution (MTS) delivers automated, up-to-the-minute status and location data about every container and mobile asset in a marine terminal.
SSA Marine, the largest privately held container terminal operator and cargo handling company in the world, is deploying the WhereNet wireless infrastructure and marine terminal solution at four West Coast ports.
The system uses active RFID WhereTag™ devices and a local infrastructure of wireless WhereLAN™ locating access points. It provides real-time location and status information for tens of thousands of containers, often stacked five high and six "lanes" wide across hundreds of acres in marine terminals.
Rather than tagging every container, which is logistically challenging, the WhereNet system enables "virtual tagging" of containers by continuously monitoring every piece of container handling equipment in the yard to keep track of when and where containers are moved.
