Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

Terminals want productivity hike
November 17, 2008
BILL MONGELLUZZO
Pacifica Shipper
Cargo volumes are down, and congestion at marine terminals is only a bad memory, but industry veterans know they’ll be scrambling for space when economic conditions improve.

That is why terminal operators intend to use the International Longshore and Warehouse Union contract that was negotiated this year on the West Coast, and the International Longshoremen’s Association contract that will be negotiated next year on the East Coast, as opportunities to improve port productivity.

“Over time, U.S.-based facilities want to have world-class terminals,” said Bill Rooney, managing director for the Americas at Hanjin Shipping Co. “We have to gravitate toward world-class standards based on safety, the environment and productivity.”

Carriers say most terminals on both coasts average 25 moves per hour, compared with 30 or more in Asia and Europe.

European and Asian terminal operators were the first to adopt information technology and modern cargo-handling equipment. They were able to marry computerized terminal-operating systems with ultra-efficient machines to maximize production from limited acreage.

Companies hope to use the 2008 ILWU contract and the ILA agreement to be negotiated next year as springboards for improved productivity. A key will be whether employers can negotiate new manning agreements to go with the computer systems and modern cargo-handling equipment.

The 2002 ILWU contract gave West Coast employers the flexibility to introduce computerized terminal-operating systems, optical character readers and cameras at their facilities. Information that in the past had been laboriously processed by marine clerks is now fed electronically to the marine terminal’s computer, bypassing the marine clerk.

Because clerks are now needed primarily to handle exceptions, a single clerk can safely and efficiently manage several cranes from the terminal tower, or control center. Employers willing to wrestle with the ILWU for elimination of clerk positions not only improved their efficiency but significantly lowered their costs. Other operators simply moved the clerks from the yard to the tower but eliminated few if any positions.

West Coast employers will now face a similar choice under the 2008 contract when it comes to manning requirements for modern cargo-handling equipment. The new contract allows for introduction of efficient equipment such as tandem-lift cranes, which lift two containers at a time, and rail-mounted gantry cranes.

“The contract is specific. Employers have the right to automate their facilities in the way that they see fit,” said Jim McKenna, president of the Pacific Maritime Association, the bargaining organization for West Coast employers.

However, the contract is silent on manning requirements, so it will be up to each employer, most likely with PMA involvement, to negotiate with the ILWU over how many general longshoremen and marine clerks will be needed to operate each piece of equipment.

An example: Rail-mounted gantry cranes. The quay-crane operator lifts a container from the vessel and places it on the apron. The rail-mounted gantry then picks up the container and moves it across the container yard to a stack where it will await the arrival of a trucker.

This operation can potentially replace dozens of workers needed to move containers on yard tractors to the stacks. Also, traditional crane operations call for the use of two operators per crane. With rail-mounted gantries, one longshoreman can operate the crane from the tower — or if the cranes are automated, he can operate multiple cranes from the tower.

This operation offers the added safety and productivity benefits of restricting street trucks to an area at the end of the container stack. Currently, truckers with empty chassis must drive through the terminals in search of containers, contributing to congestion and increasing safety risks.

A terminal that is designed from the ground up for straddle crane operations, such as the 2-year-old APM Terminals facility in Portsmouth, Va., presents terminal operators with an ideal situation. However, the vast majority of terminals would have to be reconfigured, at great expense, to accommodate this type of operation.

The marine engineering firm DMJM Harris estimates that a working terminal with four berths would need about 18 months to reconfigure each berth.

That means the entire job would take six years, not counting the environmental impact studies, said Mark Sisson, associate vice president and transportation planner at DMJM Harris.

Rooney said employers on both coasts must look at the wide variety of options available today for improving productivity. “We will have to discuss long-term technology. All available technology will be considered, although all technology will not necessarily be used at all terminals,” he said.

Improving terminal productivity does not always require elaborate technology. Sisson noted that quick gains can be realized by simpler measures such as working vessels with more quay cranes, hiring more workers to avoid interruptions from lunch and coffee breaks, keeping terminal gates open longer and moving chassis off of the terminal to free up space. “Seventy-five percent of what we have to do is easy,” Sisson said.