Dry Bulk Terminals
Dry bulk terminals (coal, iron/ore, grain, cement) use different equipment from container terminals and have their own specific planning complexity, such as varying cargo dimensions. Containers have a fixed dimension while bulk cargo is simply unloaded on a pile, and merged with other cargo. Dry bulk cargoes also have different qualities and can have different owners, so adding to the planning complexity.
Bookings need to be transported and stored on the terminal, or transshipped. Transporting dry bulk can be done via a network of conveyors belts, (wheel) loaders, unloaders, stackers/reclaimers and stored on the open yard, in silos, or directly in wagons or trucks.
Considering the inbound and outbound activities as a single planning puzzle with appropriate cost/revenue characteristics instead of as inbound followed by outbound is a typical optimization area that can save significant costs. This will also allow commercial and operational planners to visualize the yard layout for the coming days, day by day. Optimizing inbound/outbound planning also minimizes labor costs instead of labor requirements being an uncontrollable output of planning.
This is only possible by synchronizing and optimizing all the planning activities of commerce and operations, based on company-wide transparency and flexibility.
During operation many events and disturbances can happen, influencing your productivity and costs. Typical causes for rescheduling support could be:
- Uncertainty of information
- Changing estimated time of arrival of vessels/barges/trains
- Last-minute changes (traders)
- Change of modalities
- Variety of product conditions
- Variety of ship’s conditions
- Damages
- Weather conditions
- Reliability equipment
- Change of vessel (un)loading rotation by shipmaster
Quintiq allows full consequence calculation for disturbances/events and scenario planning, including full cost/benefits calculations of working weekend and night shifts. This will enable you to improve fulfillment and earning on contracts by planning contract specifics.
Introducing KPI-based planning will drive the planning based on corporate goals instead of on instincts. Terminal operations often use no value-based measurements during execution to decide on actions.