Sal, this is one of your best, I never knew how much work it is for the crane operators. Loved the live crane videos. They're truly skilled. Truly an education for the lay person. Thank you.
Great video. What about doing an overview of the process of bringing a ship into port and tying up? Pilots, harbor tugs, longshore gang, etc. People may not be aware of all that goes on before the ships can even be unloaded.
@@wgowshipping Sal: if you do a video as suggested, maybe you could work up some time numbers comparing the total time of the different size ships from a port entry point back to the point entry point. Would be interesting to see how the larger ships fare I live in Oregon and we do have a medium size port in Portland. Downside is one day (102Miles) up the Columbia and one day back down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. Info fact: The reach of tide on the Columbia River extends from the Pacific a little more than 100 miles from the ocean to the Gorge. This flat lower river section, falls less than one-half foot per mile,
it has been a very long time since then (1995 - 1999), and it wasn't a traditional cargo TEU style ship (Fast combat support ship AOE-2), I do recall just going from land on the horizon to pear side can take an entire day, then it would take a week to load the not TEUs (we had forklifts, and elevators on our ship for pallets of stuff.), and with luck, after a 6-month cruze, it would all be put back on land before going to the yeards for maintenance. I admit my knowledge is very limited as I mostly watched from the smoke deck when I wasn't on watch in 1MMR (with a cup of coffee just gawking with others, as the smoke lamp was out the entire time at that port with so much stuff that goes boom). the process really wasn't much different from this vid, a flatbed truck would drive out on the pier with the pallets, a crew would sling them, then a crane would lift the pallets to the deck of the ship (would be 2 cranes maybe 3 working at a time), then another crew would un-sling them and a forklift would bring the pallets to the elevators to go below decks (with crews down there lashing the pallets down in the cargo holds). topping up on JP5 and DFM at the other port was far more boring in a way (and I'm glad it was boring and nothing happened), as that was all valves and standing around for a few days while tanks filled up. getting underway was a relief for many as we were able to have a cup of coffee and a cig with everything stowed and sealed away (never start smoking by the way, it's easier than trying to quit).
I can think of one rule that Wavy Boats exemplifies on his collection of channels, and why it can take a day from land on the horizon to being moored up pier side. - > When in port, NEVER go faster than you are willing to hit something at. < - stuff happens at the worst possible moment, can be anything from the line to the tug breaking, to a power loss in the steering gear, and the easiest way to prevent stuff going wrong at the worst moment being a problem, is to not be in a position it would be a problem, so you take it a bit slow and give yourself some room to work with.
From a layman's point of view, the simplest fix for the problem of the trucks not lining up proper is to put yellow "stop line" markings for the front and back of the Truck / Trailer. If the driver does not stop on the correct line, you have the ground workers give hand signals to back up and stop with the back and front of the trailer lining up with the markings. That way they can correct the misalignment before the gantry crane returns for another container. It'll cost about $10 for a can of spray paint to save umpteen billions of dollars of wasted time. Your welcome :)
There’s a lot of unsung heroes out there, making our modern way of life possible. Crane operators, air traffic controlers, transmission tower maintainers, construction workers, etc. Jobs that 99% of the population couldn’t or wouldn’t do. Hats off to the true 1%s.
WHAT A GREAT VIDEO! One issue with the maritime industry is: the American public's complete lack of understanding of what the Merchant Marine actually does. This shipping crisis is a great wake up call. However, This lack of understanding on the part of the American citizens, is translated into discordant actions in Congress, because Congressional leaders just plain do not have the public support. Education is the key. Making the Maritime industry accessible to the general public, so that they do understand. .....and Boy Howdy, your a doing a Rip Sorting Job! Sal, this body of work you are doing now, is going to go down in Maritime History. It might not be Mahan, but it is significant. I salute you, Sir.
Very informative report. Before I retired, I had a few opportunities to go to the Barbours Cut terminal at the Port of Houston. (Yes, I have a TWIC ID) and watch the same operation you showed in your video. It's quite an intricate dance between the crane operator and the chassis driver to keep production on schedule. Thanks again.
VERY INTERESTIING,,,,,,,,,,,,,I USED TO WORK IN PORT NEWARK, AS A MECHANIC , SPENT TIME WHEN I WAS ABLE TO, WATCHING OFF LOADING AND LOADING,,,,,,,,,,,I LEARNED A LOT FROM THIS VIDEO............EXTREMELY COMPLEX, MORE THAN ANYONE CAN IMAGINE................THANKS FOR SOME GOOD INSIGHT
Wow this is truly insightful. The public need a to see more informative videos of what it takes to operate a container crate . Thank you so much Sal. You are definitely informing the masses.
Super report Sal. Logistics are everything after the crane operator is finished moving a given box. Neat video that truly shows the amount of time involved.
I'd like to know specifically what the apparent longshoreman slowdown is about in Tacoma, Wa. I used to work down there so I am familiar with how it used to work. Not anymore. I recently sat for hours and watched. 2 of 8 cranes in motion. Something is up.
I was on the docks in Houston for seaboard for 7yr. Another reason the vessels don't leave fully loaded is the shipper can get empty boxes cheaper than having them shipped back. US labor is super expensive. Our dock was more general cargo and our boats almost always left loaded. Seaboard has 3 500ft berths so not much notice is given to the smaller docks
Very interesting, I have never seen loading from this perspective. I grew up in Long Beach and remember seeing ships loading with cargo nets and when containers began(yes I'm old). Roll Tide!!
How much would reducing crane operator fatigue help with loading/ unloading times? Such as something like a system where the operator can press a single button after releasing or acquiring a container on the ship to make the cranee move back into position to pick up another one. Would mean a few seconds break from having to concentrate to relax and potentially reduce mistakes in lining the containers up with where they need to be.
At several Terminals at Rotterdam the operator isn't even up in the crane, he is in the terminal management building with access to a restroom and break facilities just steps away from the desk where he works. Also newer cranes can lift out two 40' containers from adjacent bays in the same cell or four 20' containers simultaneously. All it takes is money.
I work at LBCT in Long Beach, our cranes can move 2 40’s or 4 20’s in one move as well. Our yard cranes are operated remotely as well. The ship to shore cranes are semi automated, they load to a platform on the back of crane, then the automated side loads them on to the AGV. These are electric and fully automated container moving vehicles.
It would be interesting to see a video comparing robotic cranes to manual cranes. PS - incredible that the term “pop up” is now being applied to temporary container yards setup around ports of LA/LB and Savannah.
That 1rst bay is 1,2, and 3 ,1 being the 20' spot forward 2 being the center of the bay for 40's and 45's and 3 is the aft 20's ! Also the crane was loading off of chassis which is slower for safety reasons . Occasionally the dogs or pins sometimes hang up or inadvertently turn so the crane operator has to "float" the can before continuing to hoist so as not to accidentally pick up the truck with a hung chassis !!! Great video and yes that was pier 18 in Seattle where I started in the industry !!! I now drive crane down in LA/LB .
Have they considered a "canal" port where the ships enter a canal with cranes on both sides of the ship so that it can be loaded/unloaded, maybe twice? as fast?
Ok, here are some teckie questions: 1) IS there software telling the Crane Operator(CO) what box to unload next? 2) Is the Box # recorded? 3) Is there tracking of Box #'s end to end i.e. does the Box # get tracked from unload of truck into port, Box placement in Yard, and Ship storage to off load at destination port? Like these videos, keep up the great work.
The operator has a plan that shows him how many boxes and in which positions need to be discharged or loaded in each cell. The operator knows which slot is being worked on any given move. The operator cannot see the container numbers from the control cab but does not need them. The container numbers being discharged and/or loaded are recorded in the terminal operating system by the people known as "checkers". In terms of import boxes for local truck delivery, the terminal operating system logs the position the box is placed in the container yard so the box can be found when the truck arrives to pick it up.
they are tracked, and it allows them to trim the ship and plan the weights of the ship, as well as plan loading and offloading positions for the next port.
Hi Sal, great video. Just a thought to help the operator to be more efficient, have the yard jockey set something as simple as a road cone at a reference point, like the front left tire. That will take the guesswork out of where to stop. Thanks for the great coverage of the Everfoward! Living on the Eastern Shore of Md. I was very interested. Thanks again, Chris
Ok, this is probably a dumb question. It seems to me that once you have a couple of rows emptied, that you would start to load boxes into the empty hole then cycling to unload boxes. It seems that ur half way there, it would be interesting to see the timing, maybe add a minute to grab another box and get it to the dock. I realize that it would complicate the the loading and unloading, trucking, storage stacks... but that's what computers are for. Just a thought. Not being in the industry, I understand your talks, good job. Thx
In order to combine unloading and loading, it isn't that simple. Think about moving the containers away from the crane into the yard - a simple task. Then, bringing in and loading the containers in a specific order. To date, is more efficient to unload, get those out of the way, then load in whatever order is needed.
@@JR-N-TX The time savings will pay for themselves. If you save just 5 seconds overall (which seems super low) by load/unload in the same trip per box, it adds up over 5000-7500 boxes per ship to nearly 6-10 hours saved per ship of the same size. If it normally takes 6 days to process the entire load then unload for the same size ship, you can now process the same ship in 5.75 days or an increase in productivity of ~5% per YEAR = $$$$$$. As stated above, you need to ensure that the other port systems can keep up.
@@KieranMullen Yes, infuriating, that 2 out of 3 loads are parked wrong. 1st. thought. Put some frac'in traffic cones where the driver has stop. One for 40' and one for 45'. It's not that hard. 2nd. Put some lasers on the crane and a guidance system in the truck. And have the truck send back the container's barcode ID. Get it within two inches, and the automation can hook up the box without operator inputs. 3rd. Put cameras on the four corners, and targeting software can even adjust for load shifts, wind, tides and cable wear.
You would think that since the crane operator is probably the most important person there, that they would make him/her the most comfortable. With today's technology, why not put a camera facing straight down, so the operator can sit straight up and look at an oversized viewer...and also be able to zoom, saving their back and neck, and preventing fatigue over the long haul.
Better yet, put cameras at the 4 corners of the latches, and the ends of the stacker to see how close to the channel the stacker is going into the ship.
New cranes are getting to this. Here is a video from Long Beach a few years ago talking about automation upgrades. The crane operators there are now in a remote facility doing everything via camera. th-cam.com/video/JIrPWW6r1uo/w-d-xo.html
@@centurion1945 The scary thing about that is if they go remote like that, eventually they'll take the human factor out, and automate it. Self-driving cars, even though not perfect....yet....is the precursor to automated/robotic cranes, like in car manufacturing.
I've been in these gantry cranes several times for approx 12 hours total (- friends have invited me up there). The cranes CAN slew left to right - the speed is ~6"/second - slewing over to the next bay takes ~1.5 minutes. The port here also had an issue with the dockside drivers stopping in the wrong place. To sort it, they added a light beam (mounted on the crane) that shines across the drivers path, so can stop when they pass the beam - the hourly container count went up a lot by sorting that out.
Great video, the amount of expertise necessary to design these things AND operate them safely (that is where the operator in the crane becomes the most relied on individual in the process). By the way Sal l would guess this is Long Beach and not Seattle because the sky is blue and not slate gray and raining as is the case in my home state west of the Cascade mountain range where we get to see the sun about twice during the winter. I second Maritime Hawai's idea for a video on tying up. Most of us out here in the comfy world have no idea of the necessary expertise on these operations.
I had no idea the time it took to load/unload the ships. Which shows I gave zero thought to the process. But yes, as stacks of empties are still an issue, we've got to be enforcing they leave with either cargo, or empties at the very least. That would ease issues with rail/trucks being able to get cargo where it needs to be. Hearing a lot of reports about back orders stacking up, literally, for things like repair/replacement parts. What I missed however is how many ships can be unloaded at once. 3.5 days per ship is bad enough, per port...we're screwed. Tried to google it, but it just spewed the hundreds of accounts of the backlog, not how slow/fast we're dealing with ships.
Very interesting and enlightening. Always learning something new on your channel. Who would have thought shipping was so complex. It all sounds so easy. Ha!
Achieving superior port productivity requires more than just the container terminal and port authority involvement. It requires the carriers and longshoremen labor to be involved as well. Preparing the most efficient stowage plan possible in advance of the vessel's arrival to maximize crane productivity is one element. The terminal needs to set up its yard stacks to minimize extra handling and time consuming moves to sort boxes. The labor needs to work as efficiently as possible and so forth. On top of that, the terminal needs to know when the vessel is scheduled to arrive and the vessel needs to hit that berthing window on time. There are many more elements that go into it beyond just these. This is why I argue that the new queuing process at LA/LB could not have been executed by the carriers on their own. Setting aside for a moment the 150 mile drift zone and whether or not it achieves anything from an environmental point of view and whether it is being used to "hide" vessels from public view, the new queuing process changes how berthing windows at LA/LB are assigned and facilitates slow steaming on the eastbound TransPac leg. That sort of change in mode of operations can't be made without all of the stakeholders involved and that is why the process was generated out of PMSA/PMA/Marine Exchange rather than the carriers on their own.
It's great to show this operation which at one time was a giant step forward and state-of-the-art in productivity for shipping but now has become a bottleneck. By showing this you will get people from all walks of life to think about the process and develop a newer, faster, and better way of loading and unloading ships and again revolutionize the industry once again.
Have they run some computer simulation to find out optimal sizes of ships and other configurations? Sounds like 20,000TEU containerships may be good for ship company but for everyone else causes big trouble and cost.
the industry should look at the logistics of trying to do multiple containers at once. can they prestack say 2 containers onto a truck then the cranes pick 2 at once. it would take more organization and likely stronger cranes but maybe in the future.
I didn't understand the reason why until I seen this video. Thank you for the good information and the knowledge that you have to spread it to the public. 💪👍
@@wgowshipping Thanks, that's exactly what I wanted to see. Usa is a long way behind considering how much is arriving. It seems to me that the positions should be the other way round.
Totally mesmerising to watch the crane in operation 🤩 But if it's so inefficient, how come the shipping companies haven't invested into new technologies, automatisation? For instance, having a platform on each line that would put the boxes in place, or at least the raising from and lowering into the slots could be done by a lift mechanism? This whole process seemed very 20th century. Cool and fun to watch since I love heavy machinery, but quite outdated.
What you showed is old skool. I wish you had used the videos of abbmarine Remote crane operator stories used by LBCT, APMT R'dam. It shows the current and future trend.
It's impressive that they can move something that big in 90 seconds. Have you seen videos of bricklaying robots? (A conveyor feeds bricks close to their final position so the robot only needs to travel a short distance). It makes you wonder if port automation will ever turn to scaled up versions of that.
There is an excellent Discovery Channel Extreme Engineering - Container Ships (Season 2) covering the whole cargo operation of a container ship from the docking, loading, unloading and moving the containers out of the port, via train. One sees that there is a lot more to it than simply moving the boxes on and off the boat.
In Europe and Asia the crane operator works remotely from a central control room. The verticals caring containers around the port area are automated and driver-less. I believe some of these technologies have already been deployed in some ports in the US. Any reason they are not more widely used?
This is a good education into the massive brainpower, engineering and capital required to make peoples' lives as convenient and comfortable as they really are. Each of these ships' cargoes represents weeks and months of production already done for customers who can't do business without them. Somehow 10,000 small emergencies haven't translated into a national emergency yet. I think this will prove an incredible blunder.
Maybe this is a dumb question but why can’t the container crane be automated? It seems like when you’re dealing with boxes that are all the same size most things in the process should be automated.
What is different now than in the past? My amateur understanding of the problem is that there are too many empty containers and these empty containers are hampering the organizational efficiency inside the dock area. Sort of like when you defrag a crowded spinning hard drive. It takes a lot longer to defragment a full drive.
If the crane is too small to reach the outer half of the ship, can you turn the ship around to unload and reload the other side? or bring a crane barge to the gar side to unload containers onto lighters that can then unload up river like at Stockton?
There is no excuse for the yard carts to be out of position when the hoist lowers. The hoist is in a set position relative to the legs at ground level. Lasers could be affixed with driver feedback so the cart drivers do the fine adjusting prior to the hoist dropping. I would put the parts cost at about $1K per crane. And while tougher logistically, the cost/benefit has to be there to make a change. When you are at the stage of having space to put empties on while still having containers to unload in the cell, the hoist grabs an empty, loads it, then rather than traveling back to the ground, it grabs a full container and offloads, the yard cart is still there in a known perfect position, it drives off and the next cart rolls in while the hoist simply hovers, repeat. I would estimate that overall cycle time could be reduced by at least 20%. (And you eliminate the temptation to skip reloading.)
It seems to me that requiring ships to depart fully loaded is counter productive at peak shipping times, especially if you are mostly shipping back empties. Seems like it would make sense to store the empties until the Christmas season is over, assuming there are enough empties at the other end. After the peak, send the ships in partly full, and fill them up with empties to go back. I was surprised there wasn’t someone sitting there moving containers until the new guy showed up for his shift. I seems, especially with the bigger vessels, like you should empty out one stack, and then fill it up with outgoing containers while emptying the next stack. That way your horizontal movement is essentially cut in half. You would need two tractors, one with the outgoing container, and one to accept the incoming one. And a competent guy to make them park in the right spot. Perhaps some automation would help with all this.
Very informative. Thank you. Compared to Europe the USA never really invested in port infrastructure or railyways, at least not in the past 25 years. It should be their first priority. Antwerp reaches an average of 40 crane movements/hour, even on ULCS. Not sure how they do it. Looking at your video I think 30 per hour on a small vessel is super fast.
A really interesting video, showing us the problems of the crane operator particularly when unloading large container ships with their extra width. What I don’t understand, is why are other countries more effective in this work than the U S.
I wonder how much, if any, automation is used in this process. Seems like a very manual process. No disrespect to crane operators intended, but humans aren't designed very well for long-term repetitive tasks. Just curious.
So, one ship offloaded in two 24/7 days. Hundreds waiting/approaching in the queue. Question: how many such cranes at Long Beach loading dock areas? 15? 35?
Sal, first timer here. Outside eyes want to know if empty tius can be stacked and moved in heights of four or five by the RCG's and moved into position so that the STS's can load them four or five at a time?
I am not aware of any cranes in the US that could handle that weight. The most I have seen are double stacked being moved. There is also an issue of the twist locks and connecting points being able to withstand the stress.
@@wgowshipping Googled 40' cargo containers. They weigh in at 4.13 US tons and have max load of 29 US tons. If cranes, twist locks, and connection points can move max. load and tare of about 33 US tons, I would think that seven at a time would be doable by an STS crane. That would cut loading time and containers in the port.
Just spitballing here, but any thought given to cranes one day in the future being able to lift a vertical stack (2 or more) of containers on/off a ship at once? Or maybe containerizing the containers?!
That crane had a max load of 50 tons. 40 foot containers can get up to 40 tons. So there would need to be upgrades. The other issue is the attachment points at the corners would need to be upgraded. They are rated to stack weight but not lift.
@@wgowshipping There are cranes that can lift two 40' containers from adjacent bays in the same cell or four 20' containers. this video shows a crane doing just that; th-cam.com/video/ZdJMBN6hX8w/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=FreeDocumentary Go to the 24:30 mark.
@@johnbeaulieu2404 Those are side by side cranes. I was just watching this video the other day. 😁 The one with the two containers are lifting two 20 ft boxes. That is the most advanced terminal in the world. They are loading those 24k box ships.
What I was thinking was another carrage to carry the other container Pick up one with south (furthest from you) carrage and spreader pick up 2nd on north carrage travel to trailers drop north drop south. Of course the whole structure will have to carry the 100 tons too
I've been watching a guy on Tiktok live that works at long beach he operates the double cranes but it seems like the issue he has are the robots down below holding everything up.
Sal, Love your description of how containers work starting at around 04:10. I saw a different video listing the supposed top 10 third party "shipping management" (versus ship owner) companies. Do those shipping management companies tend to intermix their loads with the loads on the ship owner vessels? Just curious.
Freight forwarders and NVOCCs (Non vessel ocean common carriers) can mix loads in boxes. This is being encouraged to save space and increase throughput.
Before boxes we loaded wooden boxes,bags, cans and all taking the crane longer than 2 minutes per cycle! And yes today the loading speed isn't fast enough?
I sailed on container ships but only hit East Coast ports and North Europe. There were more longshoreman positioning the containers on the pier so they were always in the right spot for the crane. I was on a ship for 4 months and got physically off the ship for a total of 65 hours. Our longest turnaround time was 20 hours so three or four days in port now sounds like a typical sightseeing port visit for a Navy Ship or when I sailed break-bulk ships to South America. Just as McClean revolutionized the shipping industry with containers, we are due for another revolution in cargo handling. Maybe someone should design a container dock that resembles a dry dock. Thus have cranes on both sides of the ship doubling the number of cranes per ship.
Joe - since you have sailed aboard container vessels you will know that adding more cranes is not necessarily the answer. Yard operations are the single largest limiting factor for container terminals as opposed to the shipside gantry cranes. If a terminal is making say 38 to 39 moves per hour using 3 cranes and then they add 2 or 3 additional cranes without any changes in the yard operations, the overall productivity typically drops and can do so by as much as 10% or more. You can add cranes to boost vessel discharge operations but the boxes still have to go somewhere. One of the chief reasons that Asian and North European container terminals have superior productivity numbers as compared to US terminals is the adoption of automated rail mounted gantries integrated into terminal operating systems to run the yards. The first terminal in the US to adopt these sorts of systems was APM Terminal in Virginia which was later purchased by the state and is now called Virginia Gateway Terminal. I believe a few of the SoCal terminals have adopted these as well such as LBCT. The automated rail mounted gantries tied to the terminal system have pre-determined locations for every box, cut way down on or completely eliminated extra and wasteful box moves and when leveraged correctly speed up gate operations such that trucks are directed to specific rail mounted gantries and the box can be located and loaded rapidly with little to no need for human intervention. You can let your mind wander to why these systems are slow to be adopted in the US. All this to say that adding more cranes or adding cranes that can pick up multiple 40 ft. boxes per lift serve to make the problem worse without major improvements to the yard operations.
Joe, I agree about the fact that the pendulum has swung back the other way and there needs to be improvement in how containerships are loaded/unloaded. Perhaps, there is a truck driver right now with the next big idea, just as Malcolm had waiting to offload cotton in Red Hook.
Yes, LBCT has adopted this system similar to Virginia. If you look at LBCT versus APM Terminal in LA, you can see the difference in ship offload times and volume of containers moved. But it also took 10 years to get LBCT to where it is today.
It's interesting how the concept of what is efficient or timely changes over time. When covered wagons were crossing the United States, they thought that getting in 25 miles in a day was pretty good! Now that we have cars, going 25 miles in one HOUR is considered a gross inconvenience. In terms of how a contained ship being loaded or unloaded is inefficient, I was thinking of how long it would take to unload a ship like that with ropes, long-shoremen, and MAYBE a couple of cranes. I recall a few years ago, before the super huge container ships started coming on line, reading about how one of the negative impacts on Seamen was the fact that the ship would be unloaded and re-loaded in like 2 days, and they didn't have time to do much while the ship was in port.
Unfortunately, US container terminals have inferior productivity compared to those in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Asian terminals typically average around 30% more moves per crane hour than US ports. The constraint is not the gantry crane but rather the yard hustlers and the wheeled or rail mounted gantries that work the yard stacks. This could be seen in the video as the cycle time of the gantry once the box is under the spreader bar is more or less uniform. That 80 to 90 second cycle time is usual. LA/LB generally has better productivity than the US East Coast ports but LA/LB is still fairly far behind the other major container ports worldwide.
Dumb question here... At airports, airplanes have markers on the taxi so they know where to park for the jet bridge. Why don't these trucks have markers so they know how to line up? It seems like you could do a 40,20 box marker pretty easily and shave some time off.
Sal, interesting video, especially the numbers breakdown. The CEO of Union Pacific was on CNBC today and said one of the problems from their perspective was boxes being emptied at the ports. Obviously UP is not going to haul empty boxes anywhere so that reduces their ability help with the bottleneck at the ports and supply chain issues in general. To me that doesn’t jibe with the supposed shortage of truck drivers at the ports.
Joseph, it is a matter of coordination and where the final containers need to go. Typically the bays are loaded with all the goods for a specific port.
@@wgowshipping Also, you want to put the empties on the top for weight and balance on the ship. Get the ship top heavy by loading empties low and it could roll over, which would not be a good thing.
railroads may have some help to offer, as they have developed speedier loading and unloading over a period of time. But the cones used to move heavy objects in ancient technology come to mind. There is a way...
Sal, this is one of your best, I never knew how much work it is for the crane operators. Loved the live crane videos. They're truly skilled. Truly an education for the lay person. Thank you.
I'm a retired crane operator from seattle. I have operated this crane, and know this operator, this is filmed in seattle
The story said Seattle and Oakland, so I was not sure which one.
Great video. What about doing an overview of the process of bringing a ship into port and tying up? Pilots, harbor tugs, longshore gang, etc. People may not be aware of all that goes on before the ships can even be unloaded.
Sure.
@@wgowshipping Sal: if you do a video as suggested, maybe you could work up some time numbers comparing the total time of the different size ships from a port entry point back to the point entry point. Would be interesting to see how the larger ships fare I live in Oregon and we do have a medium size port in Portland. Downside is one day (102Miles) up the Columbia and one day back down the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean.
Info fact: The reach of tide on the Columbia River extends from the Pacific a little more than 100 miles from the ocean to the Gorge. This flat lower river section, falls less than one-half foot per mile,
it has been a very long time since then (1995 - 1999), and it wasn't a traditional cargo TEU style ship (Fast combat support ship AOE-2), I do recall just going from land on the horizon to pear side can take an entire day, then it would take a week to load the not TEUs (we had forklifts, and elevators on our ship for pallets of stuff.), and with luck, after a 6-month cruze, it would all be put back on land before going to the yeards for maintenance. I admit my knowledge is very limited as I mostly watched from the smoke deck when I wasn't on watch in 1MMR (with a cup of coffee just gawking with others, as the smoke lamp was out the entire time at that port with so much stuff that goes boom).
the process really wasn't much different from this vid, a flatbed truck would drive out on the pier with the pallets, a crew would sling them, then a crane would lift the pallets to the deck of the ship (would be 2 cranes maybe 3 working at a time), then another crew would un-sling them and a forklift would bring the pallets to the elevators to go below decks (with crews down there lashing the pallets down in the cargo holds). topping up on JP5 and DFM at the other port was far more boring in a way (and I'm glad it was boring and nothing happened), as that was all valves and standing around for a few days while tanks filled up. getting underway was a relief for many as we were able to have a cup of coffee and a cig with everything stowed and sealed away (never start smoking by the way, it's easier than trying to quit).
I can think of one rule that Wavy Boats exemplifies on his collection of channels, and why it can take a day from land on the horizon to being moored up pier side.
- > When in port, NEVER go faster than you are willing to hit something at. < -
stuff happens at the worst possible moment, can be anything from the line to the tug breaking, to a power loss in the steering gear, and the easiest way to prevent stuff going wrong at the worst moment being a problem, is to not be in a position it would be a problem, so you take it a bit slow and give yourself some room to work with.
From a layman's point of view, the simplest fix for the problem of the trucks not lining up proper is to put yellow "stop line" markings for the front and back of the Truck / Trailer. If the driver does not stop on the correct line, you have the ground workers give hand signals to back up and stop with the back and front of the trailer lining up with the markings. That way they can correct the misalignment before the gantry crane returns for another container. It'll cost about $10 for a can of spray paint to save umpteen billions of dollars of wasted time. Your welcome :)
Unbelievable. Maybe if more industries did this kind of video we'd have more appreciation of the things that are getting to us.
Perhaps the Department of Transportation could do a video to let us know what they do. If they do anything.
@@scottn7cy It would probably be a short video of the Secretary of Transportation on maternity leave.
@@scottn7cy LOL
There’s a lot of unsung heroes out there, making our modern way of life possible. Crane operators, air traffic controlers, transmission tower maintainers, construction workers, etc.
Jobs that 99% of the population couldn’t or wouldn’t do. Hats off to the true 1%s.
WHAT A GREAT VIDEO! One issue with the maritime industry is: the American public's complete lack of understanding of what the Merchant Marine actually does. This shipping crisis is a great wake up call. However, This lack of understanding on the part of the American citizens, is translated into discordant actions in Congress, because Congressional leaders just plain do not have the public support. Education is the key. Making the Maritime industry accessible to the general public, so that they do understand. .....and Boy Howdy, your a doing a Rip Sorting Job! Sal, this body of work you are doing now, is going to go down in Maritime History. It might not be Mahan, but it is significant. I salute you, Sir.
Very informative report. Before I retired, I had a few opportunities to go to the Barbours Cut terminal at the Port of Houston. (Yes, I have a TWIC ID) and watch the same operation you showed in your video. It's quite an intricate dance between the crane operator and the chassis driver to keep production on schedule. Thanks again.
Thank you very good video, I used to haul out of ports until I came to my senses. I found this very informative.
VERY INTERESTIING,,,,,,,,,,,,,I USED TO WORK IN PORT NEWARK, AS A MECHANIC , SPENT TIME WHEN I WAS ABLE TO, WATCHING OFF LOADING AND LOADING,,,,,,,,,,,I LEARNED A LOT FROM THIS VIDEO............EXTREMELY COMPLEX, MORE THAN ANYONE CAN IMAGINE................THANKS FOR SOME GOOD INSIGHT
Wow this is truly insightful. The public need a to see more informative videos of what it takes to operate a container crate . Thank you so much Sal. You are definitely informing the masses.
Super report Sal. Logistics are everything after the crane operator is finished moving a given box. Neat video that truly shows the amount of time involved.
Very intricate work! I knew a guy who was a crane operator at the port of Oakland. He was paid very well and it appears he earned every penny!
I'd like to know specifically what the apparent longshoreman slowdown is about in Tacoma, Wa. I used to work down there so I am familiar with how it used to work. Not anymore. I recently sat for hours and watched. 2 of 8 cranes in motion. Something is up.
I was on the docks in Houston for seaboard for 7yr. Another reason the vessels don't leave fully loaded is the shipper can get empty boxes cheaper than having them shipped back. US labor is super expensive. Our dock was more general cargo and our boats almost always left loaded. Seaboard has 3 500ft berths so not much notice is given to the smaller docks
The guides on the spreader that go up and and down are referred to as flippers in LA. Also what you call strapping is called lashing.
The best video yet, Sal!
Very interesting, I have never seen loading from this perspective. I grew up in Long Beach and remember seeing ships loading with cargo nets and when containers began(yes I'm old). Roll Tide!!
How much would reducing crane operator fatigue help with loading/ unloading times?
Such as something like a system where the operator can press a single button after releasing or acquiring a container on the ship to make the cranee move back into position to pick up another one. Would mean a few seconds break from having to concentrate to relax and potentially reduce mistakes in lining the containers up with where they need to be.
At several Terminals at Rotterdam the operator isn't even up in the crane, he is in the terminal management building with access to a restroom and break facilities just steps away from the desk where he works. Also newer cranes can lift out two 40' containers from adjacent bays in the same cell or four 20' containers simultaneously. All it takes is money.
I work at LBCT in Long Beach, our cranes can move 2 40’s or 4 20’s in one move as well. Our yard cranes are operated remotely as well. The ship to shore cranes are semi automated, they load to a platform on the back of crane, then the automated side loads them on to the AGV. These are electric and fully automated container moving vehicles.
It would be interesting to see a video comparing robotic cranes to manual cranes.
PS - incredible that the term “pop up” is now being applied to temporary container yards setup around ports of LA/LB and Savannah.
Extremely Pleased we found your Channel,you have a excellent Presentation Manor.My wife and i have come to really appreciate your timely views.
That 1rst bay is 1,2, and 3 ,1 being the 20' spot forward 2 being the center of the bay for 40's and 45's and 3 is the aft 20's ! Also the crane was loading off of chassis which is slower for safety reasons . Occasionally the dogs or pins sometimes hang up or inadvertently turn so the crane operator has to "float" the can before continuing to hoist so as not to accidentally pick up the truck with a hung chassis !!! Great video and yes that was pier 18 in Seattle where I started in the industry !!! I now drive crane down in LA/LB .
Fascinating.
Have they considered a "canal" port where the ships enter a canal with cranes on both sides of the ship so that it can be loaded/unloaded, maybe twice? as fast?
That then limits crane movement as well as ship size. Long term at least.
Ok, here are some teckie questions:
1) IS there software telling the Crane Operator(CO) what box to unload next?
2) Is the Box # recorded?
3) Is there tracking of Box #'s end to end i.e. does the Box # get tracked from unload of truck into port, Box placement in Yard, and Ship storage to off load at destination port?
Like these videos, keep up the great work.
The operator has a plan that shows him how many boxes and in which positions need to be discharged or loaded in each cell. The operator knows which slot is being worked on any given move. The operator cannot see the container numbers from the control cab but does not need them. The container numbers being discharged and/or loaded are recorded in the terminal operating system by the people known as "checkers". In terms of import boxes for local truck delivery, the terminal operating system logs the position the box is placed in the container yard so the box can be found when the truck arrives to pick it up.
they are tracked, and it allows them to trim the ship and plan the weights of the ship, as well as plan loading and offloading positions for the next port.
Great video Sal. Could you address why other ports operate more efficiently than US ports. What could we learn and improve?
Hi Sal, great video. Just a thought to help the operator to be more efficient, have the yard jockey set something as simple as a road cone at a reference point, like the front left tire. That will take the guesswork out of where to stop.
Thanks for the great coverage of the Everfoward! Living on the Eastern Shore of Md. I was very interested.
Thanks again,
Chris
My grandfather did this for a living in Portland Maine back before WWII.
Thank you for the link to that book! I've been looking for something like it
wow thanks so much I used to operate a gantry crane at a railway but I was only up a 100 + feet so you have to have great eye site as well.
I had no idea that the containers go that far down in the ship -this was a very cool and informative video! Thanks👍🇺🇲
Ok, this is probably a dumb question. It seems to me that once you have a couple of rows emptied, that you would start to load boxes into the empty hole then cycling to unload boxes. It seems that ur half way there, it would be interesting to see the timing, maybe add a minute to grab another box and get it to the dock. I realize that it would complicate the the loading and unloading, trucking, storage stacks... but that's what computers are for. Just a thought. Not being in the industry, I understand your talks, good job. Thx
Agreed! Load and unload at the same time. Also park in the right spot! The worker down below is not as helpful as they could be.
In order to combine unloading and loading, it isn't that simple. Think about moving the containers away from the crane into the yard - a simple task. Then, bringing in and loading the containers in a specific order. To date, is more efficient to unload, get those out of the way, then load in whatever order is needed.
@@JR-N-TX The time savings will pay for themselves. If you save just 5 seconds overall (which seems super low) by load/unload in the same trip per box, it adds up over 5000-7500 boxes per ship to nearly 6-10 hours saved per ship of the same size. If it normally takes 6 days to process the entire load then unload for the same size ship, you can now process the same ship in 5.75 days or an increase in productivity of ~5% per YEAR = $$$$$$. As stated above, you need to ensure that the other port systems can keep up.
@@jtd8719 How much time did you lose in the staging?
@@KieranMullen
Yes, infuriating, that 2 out of 3 loads are parked wrong.
1st. thought. Put some frac'in traffic cones where the driver has stop. One for 40' and one for 45'. It's not that hard.
2nd. Put some lasers on the crane and a guidance system in the truck. And have the truck send back the container's barcode ID. Get it within two inches, and the automation can hook up the box without operator inputs.
3rd. Put cameras on the four corners, and targeting software can even adjust for load shifts, wind, tides and cable wear.
You would think that since the crane operator is probably the most important person there, that they would make him/her the most comfortable. With today's technology, why not put a camera facing straight down, so the operator can sit straight up and look at an oversized viewer...and also be able to zoom, saving their back and neck, and preventing fatigue over the long haul.
Better yet, put cameras at the 4 corners of the latches, and the ends of the stacker to see how close to the channel the stacker is going into the ship.
How about lasers from the crane to exactly mark yard trk parking location? This is an excellent site, very informative!
New cranes are getting to this. Here is a video from Long Beach a few years ago talking about automation upgrades. The crane operators there are now in a remote facility doing everything via camera. th-cam.com/video/JIrPWW6r1uo/w-d-xo.html
@@centurion1945 The scary thing about that is if they go remote like that, eventually they'll take the human factor out, and automate it. Self-driving cars, even though not perfect....yet....is the precursor to automated/robotic cranes, like in car manufacturing.
Very very interesting. Thanks
I've been in these gantry cranes several times for approx 12 hours total (- friends have invited me up there). The cranes CAN slew left to right - the speed is ~6"/second - slewing over to the next bay takes ~1.5 minutes. The port here also had an issue with the dockside drivers stopping in the wrong place. To sort it, they added a light beam (mounted on the crane) that shines across the drivers path, so can stop when they pass the beam - the hourly container count went up a lot by sorting that out.
What I meant was that they tend to work a single bay and then move on to the next. Of course the cranes can move down the pier.
To be clear, the footage from this operation isn't from the Port of LALB.
Great video, the amount of expertise necessary to design these things AND operate them safely (that is where the operator in the crane becomes the most relied on individual in the process). By the way Sal l would guess this is Long Beach and not Seattle because the sky is blue and not slate gray and raining as is the case in my home state west of the Cascade mountain range where we get to see the sun about twice during the winter. I second Maritime Hawai's idea for a video on tying up. Most of us out here in the comfy world have no idea of the necessary expertise on these operations.
That was fascinating! Thank you.
Very interesting. Impressive. But also... good golly! The amount of stuff imported into this country is absolutely insane!
I had no idea the time it took to load/unload the ships. Which shows I gave zero thought to the process. But yes, as stacks of empties are still an issue, we've got to be enforcing they leave with either cargo, or empties at the very least. That would ease issues with rail/trucks being able to get cargo where it needs to be. Hearing a lot of reports about back orders stacking up, literally, for things like repair/replacement parts. What I missed however is how many ships can be unloaded at once. 3.5 days per ship is bad enough, per port...we're screwed. Tried to google it, but it just spewed the hundreds of accounts of the backlog, not how slow/fast we're dealing with ships.
Amazing the term “pop up” has now been applied to temporarily container yards around Los Angeles and Savannah.
Nicely done! Great footage! Thank you!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks Sal good informative video!
Fascinating. Please do more like this if you can.
ur the best sal!
Very interesting and enlightening. Always learning something new on your channel. Who would have thought shipping was so complex. It all sounds so easy. Ha!
Achieving superior port productivity requires more than just the container terminal and port authority involvement. It requires the carriers and longshoremen labor to be involved as well. Preparing the most efficient stowage plan possible in advance of the vessel's arrival to maximize crane productivity is one element. The terminal needs to set up its yard stacks to minimize extra handling and time consuming moves to sort boxes. The labor needs to work as efficiently as possible and so forth. On top of that, the terminal needs to know when the vessel is scheduled to arrive and the vessel needs to hit that berthing window on time. There are many more elements that go into it beyond just these.
This is why I argue that the new queuing process at LA/LB could not have been executed by the carriers on their own. Setting aside for a moment the 150 mile drift zone and whether or not it achieves anything from an environmental point of view and whether it is being used to "hide" vessels from public view, the new queuing process changes how berthing windows at LA/LB are assigned and facilitates slow steaming on the eastbound TransPac leg. That sort of change in mode of operations can't be made without all of the stakeholders involved and that is why the process was generated out of PMSA/PMA/Marine Exchange rather than the carriers on their own.
I have operated cranes in the electric utilities, sub stations, power plants etc. this looks like a fun career.
Is there anyone working on different ways to unload/load containers? It would be interesting to see what advances maybe in the works.
It's great to show this operation which at one time was a giant step forward and state-of-the-art in productivity for shipping but now has become a bottleneck. By showing this you will get people from all walks of life to think about the process and develop a newer, faster, and better way of loading and unloading ships and again revolutionize the industry once again.
Have they run some computer simulation to find out optimal sizes of ships and other configurations? Sounds like 20,000TEU containerships may be good for ship company but for everyone else causes big trouble and cost.
Amazing! So do people do the cross-strapping? How many hours do the crane operators work?
the industry should look at the logistics of trying to do multiple containers at once. can they prestack say 2 containers onto a truck then the cranes pick 2 at once. it would take more organization and likely stronger cranes but maybe in the future.
I didn't understand the reason why until I seen this video. Thank you for the good information and the knowledge that you have to spread it to the public. 💪👍
Lot of work involved,
Fantastic post, vid and… book! I’m gonna read it tonight. Shipping Junkie, here.
Fascinating! Thanks for sharing
Great video, and explanation. Can we see what a more efficient load/unload operation looks like?
Question-Sam what makes west coast port not as efficient?
Can you get any footage of over seas operations on the same subject?
Watch this:
th-cam.com/video/IzOeAGAu60k/w-d-xo.html
@@wgowshipping Thanks, that's exactly what I wanted to see.
Usa is a long way behind considering how much is arriving. It seems to me that the positions should be the other way round.
This a great video. 👍😉. Thanks Sal.
Hi Sal, is it possible to automate the crane with computers?
Great video today, Keep up the great work Sal. Semper Paratus ⚓⚙️
Totally mesmerising to watch the crane in operation 🤩
But if it's so inefficient, how come the shipping companies haven't invested into new technologies, automatisation? For instance, having a platform on each line that would put the boxes in place, or at least the raising from and lowering into the slots could be done by a lift mechanism? This whole process seemed very 20th century. Cool and fun to watch since I love heavy machinery, but quite outdated.
Great explanation!
What you showed is old skool. I wish you had used the videos of abbmarine Remote crane operator stories used by LBCT, APMT R'dam. It shows the current and future trend.
Send me a link and I will post it.
They are still doing it like this in many terminals.
@@wgowshipping th-cam.com/video/ehWQz_Z3-ic/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=abbmarine
th-cam.com/video/Ic9UrW77UGA/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=abbmarine
@@wgowshipping th-cam.com/video/VtGDRhXWvng/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=RichardAguilar this terminal processes 39 container per hour in 2019!
@@micheltibon6552 That terminal in China sets the bar for all others. LBCT is a lot faster than conventional terminals in LA/LB.
Well explained!
It's impressive that they can move something that big in 90 seconds. Have you seen videos of bricklaying robots? (A conveyor feeds bricks close to their final position so the robot only needs to travel a short distance). It makes you wonder if port automation will ever turn to scaled up versions of that.
There is an excellent Discovery Channel Extreme Engineering - Container Ships (Season 2) covering the whole cargo operation of a container ship from the docking, loading, unloading and moving the containers out of the port, via train. One sees that there is a lot more to it than simply moving the boxes on and off the boat.
In Europe and Asia the crane operator works remotely from a central control room. The verticals caring containers around the port area are automated and driver-less. I believe some of these technologies have already been deployed in some ports in the US. Any reason they are not more widely used?
This is a good education into the massive brainpower, engineering and capital required to make peoples' lives as convenient and comfortable as they really are. Each of these ships' cargoes represents weeks and months of production already done for customers who can't do business without them.
Somehow 10,000 small emergencies haven't translated into a national emergency yet. I think this will prove an incredible blunder.
I Pencil...
good old capitalism at work.
profit motivated people doing things to make money.
@@davidjacobs8558 or...not doing things to make money, shipowners are making a killing right now, they're in no hurry to clear up this consumer surge
Maybe this is a dumb question but why can’t the container crane be automated? It seems like when you’re dealing with boxes that are all the same size most things in the process should be automated.
What is different now than in the past? My amateur understanding of the problem is that there are too many empty containers and these empty containers are hampering the organizational efficiency inside the dock area. Sort of like when you defrag a crowded spinning hard drive. It takes a lot longer to defragment a full drive.
there is sunshine in the picture, probability of the picture being taken in the 10 days of sunshine for Seattle versus 350 in LA?
I'm thinking this is Seattle. I live here and see a Washington state ferry and the West Seattle Bridge!
they should project a set of colored lights onto the ground for the carts to line the container up with.
If the crane is too small to reach the outer half of the ship, can you turn the ship around to unload and reload the other side? or bring a crane barge to the gar side to unload containers onto lighters that can then unload up river like at Stockton?
There is no excuse for the yard carts to be out of position when the hoist lowers. The hoist is in a set position relative to the legs at ground level. Lasers could be affixed with driver feedback so the cart drivers do the fine adjusting prior to the hoist dropping. I would put the parts cost at about $1K per crane.
And while tougher logistically, the cost/benefit has to be there to make a change.
When you are at the stage of having space to put empties on while still having containers to unload in the cell, the hoist grabs an empty, loads it, then rather than traveling back to the ground, it grabs a full container and offloads, the yard cart is still there in a known perfect position, it drives off and the next cart rolls in while the hoist simply hovers, repeat.
I would estimate that overall cycle time could be reduced by at least 20%. (And you eliminate the temptation to skip reloading.)
It seems to me that requiring ships to depart fully loaded is counter productive at peak shipping times, especially if you are mostly shipping back empties. Seems like it would make sense to store the empties until the Christmas season is over, assuming there are enough empties at the other end. After the peak, send the ships in partly full, and fill them up with empties to go back.
I was surprised there wasn’t someone sitting there moving containers until the new guy showed up for his shift.
I seems, especially with the bigger vessels, like you should empty out one stack, and then fill it up with outgoing containers while emptying the next stack. That way your horizontal movement is essentially cut in half. You would need two tractors, one with the outgoing container, and one to accept the incoming one. And a competent guy to make them park in the right spot. Perhaps some automation would help with all this.
Great video goood information
Very informative. Thank you.
Compared to Europe the USA never really invested in port infrastructure or railyways, at least not in the past 25 years. It should be their first priority.
Antwerp reaches an average of 40 crane movements/hour, even on ULCS. Not sure how they do it. Looking at your video I think 30 per hour on a small vessel is super fast.
A really interesting video, showing us the problems of the crane operator particularly when unloading large container ships with their extra width. What I don’t understand, is why are other countries more effective in this work than the U S.
I wonder how much, if any, automation is used in this process. Seems like a very manual process. No disrespect to crane operators intended, but humans aren't designed very well for long-term repetitive tasks. Just curious.
So, one ship offloaded in two 24/7 days. Hundreds waiting/approaching in the queue. Question: how many such cranes at Long Beach loading dock areas? 15? 35?
Great educational video.
Interesting. However, this is a given. It took this much time pre-pandemic too. What changed since then?
Sal, first timer here. Outside eyes want to know if empty tius can be stacked and moved in heights of four or five by the RCG's and moved into position so that the STS's can load them four or five at a time?
I am not aware of any cranes in the US that could handle that weight. The most I have seen are double stacked being moved. There is also an issue of the twist locks and connecting points being able to withstand the stress.
@@wgowshipping Googled 40' cargo containers. They weigh in at 4.13 US tons and have max load of 29 US tons. If cranes, twist locks, and connection points can move max. load and tare of about 33 US tons, I would think that seven at a time would be doable by an STS crane. That would cut loading time and containers in the port.
Just spitballing here, but any thought given to cranes one day in the future being able to lift a vertical stack (2 or more) of containers on/off a ship at once? Or maybe containerizing the containers?!
I was thinking along the same line tandem spreaders 2 loaded in 2 empty out.
That crane had a max load of 50 tons. 40 foot containers can get up to 40 tons. So there would need to be upgrades.
The other issue is the attachment points at the corners would need to be upgraded. They are rated to stack weight but not lift.
@@wgowshipping There are cranes that can lift two 40' containers from adjacent bays in the same cell or four 20' containers. this video shows a crane doing just that; th-cam.com/video/ZdJMBN6hX8w/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=FreeDocumentary
Go to the 24:30 mark.
@@johnbeaulieu2404 Those are side by side cranes. I was just watching this video the other day. 😁
The one with the two containers are lifting two 20 ft boxes.
That is the most advanced terminal in the world. They are loading those 24k box ships.
What I was thinking was another carrage to carry the other container
Pick up one with south (furthest from you) carrage and spreader pick up 2nd on north carrage travel to trailers drop north drop south.
Of course the whole structure will have to carry the 100 tons too
That was fun!
I've been watching a guy on Tiktok live that works at long beach he operates the double cranes but it seems like the issue he has are the robots down below holding everything up.
Sal,
Love your description of how containers work starting at around 04:10. I saw a different video listing the supposed top 10 third party "shipping management" (versus ship owner) companies. Do those shipping management companies tend to intermix their loads with the loads on the ship owner vessels? Just curious.
Freight forwarders and NVOCCs (Non vessel ocean common carriers) can mix loads in boxes. This is being encouraged to save space and increase throughput.
Interesting video thx for sharing!
Are the containers cheaper to buy now there not exporting
Before boxes we loaded wooden boxes,bags, cans and all taking the crane longer than 2 minutes per cycle!
And yes today the loading speed isn't fast enough?
I sailed on container ships but only hit East Coast ports and North Europe. There were more longshoreman positioning the containers on the pier so they were always in the right spot for the crane. I was on a ship for 4 months and got physically off the ship for a total of 65 hours. Our longest turnaround time was 20 hours so three or four days in port now sounds like a typical sightseeing port visit for a Navy Ship or when I sailed break-bulk ships to South America. Just as McClean revolutionized the shipping industry with containers, we are due for another revolution in cargo handling. Maybe someone should design a container dock that resembles a dry dock. Thus have cranes on both sides of the ship doubling the number of cranes per ship.
Joe - since you have sailed aboard container vessels you will know that adding more cranes is not necessarily the answer. Yard operations are the single largest limiting factor for container terminals as opposed to the shipside gantry cranes. If a terminal is making say 38 to 39 moves per hour using 3 cranes and then they add 2 or 3 additional cranes without any changes in the yard operations, the overall productivity typically drops and can do so by as much as 10% or more. You can add cranes to boost vessel discharge operations but the boxes still have to go somewhere.
One of the chief reasons that Asian and North European container terminals have superior productivity numbers as compared to US terminals is the adoption of automated rail mounted gantries integrated into terminal operating systems to run the yards. The first terminal in the US to adopt these sorts of systems was APM Terminal in Virginia which was later purchased by the state and is now called Virginia Gateway Terminal. I believe a few of the SoCal terminals have adopted these as well such as LBCT. The automated rail mounted gantries tied to the terminal system have pre-determined locations for every box, cut way down on or completely eliminated extra and wasteful box moves and when leveraged correctly speed up gate operations such that trucks are directed to specific rail mounted gantries and the box can be located and loaded rapidly with little to no need for human intervention. You can let your mind wander to why these systems are slow to be adopted in the US.
All this to say that adding more cranes or adding cranes that can pick up multiple 40 ft. boxes per lift serve to make the problem worse without major improvements to the yard operations.
Joe, I agree about the fact that the pendulum has swung back the other way and there needs to be improvement in how containerships are loaded/unloaded. Perhaps, there is a truck driver right now with the next big idea, just as Malcolm had waiting to offload cotton in Red Hook.
Yes, LBCT has adopted this system similar to Virginia. If you look at LBCT versus APM Terminal in LA, you can see the difference in ship offload times and volume of containers moved. But it also took 10 years to get LBCT to where it is today.
It's interesting how the concept of what is efficient or timely changes over time. When covered wagons were crossing the United States, they thought that getting in 25 miles in a day was pretty good! Now that we have cars, going 25 miles in one HOUR is considered a gross inconvenience.
In terms of how a contained ship being loaded or unloaded is inefficient, I was thinking of how long it would take to unload a ship like that with ropes, long-shoremen, and MAYBE a couple of cranes. I recall a few years ago, before the super huge container ships started coming on line, reading about how one of the negative impacts on Seamen was the fact that the ship would be unloaded and re-loaded in like 2 days, and they didn't have time to do much while the ship was in port.
Unfortunately, US container terminals have inferior productivity compared to those in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Asian terminals typically average around 30% more moves per crane hour than US ports. The constraint is not the gantry crane but rather the yard hustlers and the wheeled or rail mounted gantries that work the yard stacks. This could be seen in the video as the cycle time of the gantry once the box is under the spreader bar is more or less uniform. That 80 to 90 second cycle time is usual. LA/LB generally has better productivity than the US East Coast ports but LA/LB is still fairly far behind the other major container ports worldwide.
Dumb question here...
At airports, airplanes have markers on the taxi so they know where to park for the jet bridge. Why don't these trucks have markers so they know how to line up?
It seems like you could do a 40,20 box marker pretty easily and shave some time off.
Actually, they have spotters standing there telling the drivers where to stop.
Sal, interesting video, especially the numbers breakdown.
The CEO of Union Pacific was on CNBC today and said one of the problems from their perspective was boxes being emptied at the ports. Obviously UP is not going to haul empty boxes anywhere so that reduces their ability help with the bottleneck at the ports and supply chain issues in general. To me that doesn’t jibe with the supposed shortage of truck drivers at the ports.
Union Pacific halls *hundreds* of empty ISO containers everyday on westbound trains.
Why can't they bring in an empty if the cell in the same row is empty?
I'm sure it wouldn't cut the time in half but it has to help
Joseph, it is a matter of coordination and where the final containers need to go. Typically the bays are loaded with all the goods for a specific port.
@@wgowshipping Also, you want to put the empties on the top for weight and balance on the ship. Get the ship top heavy by loading empties low and it could roll over, which would not be a good thing.
How does ocean shipping compares to railways?
railroads may have some help to offer, as they have developed speedier loading and unloading over a period of time. But the cones used to move heavy objects in ancient technology come to mind. There is a way...