Rail and marine terminal operators depend on coordination and communication across their facility’s core activities. But for many terminals, the ability to communicate between different systems and functions is exactly what’s missing.
Lift operators may not have up-to-date info on everything that’s happening at the terminal gate. Customers don’t have visibility into where their cargo is located. Accounts receivable personnel might have to chase down key information needed to send out timely, accurate invoices.
These challenges aren’t anyone’s fault—they’re the day-to-day reality for many terminals. But until the silos separating these activities are broken down, marine and rail terminals will have a difficult time optimising their operations for better cost-efficiency, performance, and customer service.
At Tideworks, we’ve seen terminals both small and large address these constraints by prioritising data connectivity across their disparate technologies and systems.
Read on for our perspective on how better connectivity and data flow can improve communication and efficiency across your day-to-day operations, as well as our recommendations for creating these connections between your systems and your terminal operating system (TOS).
The case for data connectivity in marine and rail terminals
Data connectivity within your terminal environment gives every arm of operations the freedom to function and communicate without the constraints of data silos, workflow disruptions, and inflexible software architecture. It achieves this by replacing rigid, one-size-fits-all integration models with a modular data platform approach—or one composed of individual modules that are interconnected.
A modular platform offers two key benefits for terminal operators. First, they enable scalable, flexible integration across terminal, partner, and enterprise systems, which makes it faster and more cost-effective to add new software or equipment to your terminal’s digital ecosystem. With minimised disruption and development costs, your terminal can easily keep its digital ecosystem up-to-date with the latest and greatest technologies.
Second, a modular data platform ensures future compatibility and guards against obsolescence. True data connectivity establishes common standards for connectivity that reduce the risk of a connection suddenly failing because an equipment manufacturer changed their application programming interface (API) without informing your terminal.
The importance of data connectivity in improving terminal-wide operations
Day-to-day terminal operations are like a never-ending theatre production: Just as actors, directors, lighting, sets, and props must all work in constant collaboration with one another, terminals operate at their best when different systems and processes are able to communicate and minimise friction within the environment.
When communication and data flow fail, terminals suffer from unproductive lifts, workflow bottlenecks, and other inefficiencies that increase operating costs, reduce throughput, and frustrate your customers.
But internal connectivity is only part of the solution. Terminals also benefit from data connectivity that can reach beyond their physical environment to connect with outside customers, vendors, and other external systems. With real-time data flow between your TOS and external sources, terminals can achieve connectivity that delivers a measurable business impact in many forms.
Lift operators can prioritise container moves for trucks already waiting in the yard, improving customer service and speeding up turn times. Within the terminal yard itself, accurate data is critical. A misplaced container, or an inventory discrepancy, for example, can quickly throw operations off track. Terminal staff may be forced to stop planned work and instead reconcile inventory to locate the missing container, slowing throughput and wasting valuable time.
“The faster you can surface the right data to operations, the faster you can reduce these errors and avoid costly rehandles,” Subbu Bhat, VP of Software Engineering at Tideworks, says. “Data should be accessible through flexible interfaces, allowing terminal operators and partners to easily plug in, extract insights, and make faster, better decisions.”
The three types of data integration every terminal should consider
Achieving true data connectivity requires integration of your operational systems as well as all relevant partner, customer, enterprise, and financial systems.
Here’s a look at the three critical types of data integrations terminals will need to realise their digitalisation goals:
Terminal and partner systems integration
Terminal and partner systems represent your facility’s full spectrum of operations, which can include gate automation, OCR, WMS, and other third-party tools.
A terminal operating system (TOS) functions as the central nervous system for these integrations, using connectivity standards to reduce friction between the technology required to orchestrate complex terminal operations—including partner systems that are part of your network.
“There are a lot of dependencies to what goes on within the terminal,” says Bhat. “When you’re able to reduce internal friction according to those connectivity standards, it can have an effect on how quickly you’re able to move containers in your terminal, as well as the costs you incur on those containers.”
Reliable, high-quality integrations are a prerequisite to acquiring the clean, real-time data terminals needed to achieve true connectivity across both your terminal and the broader supply chain ecosystem. Once your terminal can provide interfaces that offer accurate, cleansed, and governed data in near-real time, it allows your ops teams, customers, and outside partners to plug and play into that data, turning terminal connectivity into tangible business value.
Customer data integration
Data integration with customers enables terminals to provide better communication and service around container availability, status, and shipment ETAs. With access to real-time updates, customers on the receiving end of shipments can coordinate their own on-the-ground operations for more efficient cargo flow into warehouses and distribution centres.
Tideworks’ TOS, for example, provides customers with standard API integrations allowing them to automate data sharing for improved visibility. Those customers can then automate their own data sharing with BCO partners while also reducing manual processes and improving service predictability across their operations.
Customer data integrations ultimately reduce shipping bottlenecks while improving the customer’s relationship with their own BCO partners. This improved transparency can improve cost-efficiencies for the customer while enabling them to handle increased shipping volumes.
Enterprise and financial systems integration
Sitting above your operational integrations are the enterprise and financial systems that make up your terminal’s corporate tech stack. These include ERPs, planning tools, company-level financial software, and third-party integrations with customs and tax authorities.
Enterprise-level integrations typically use either electronic data interchange (EDI) or APIs to connect. When these enterprise-level connections are underpinned by a modern data platform, they can further enhance data flow between your systems by managing and optimising data from your TOS—providing 360-degree, near real-time visibility into all operational data across your corporate network.
This unified architecture can ultimately enable greater enterprise data strategies across your terminal. By centralising management of enterprise and operational metrics, terminals can improve their operational efficiency, control operating costs, and increase revenue and profits from their day-to-day activities.
3 best practices for better data connectivity between your systems and TOS
Great data connectivity doesn’t start with technology acquisitions. It starts with the right strategic principles, setting a foundation for digital change that translates into positive business value.
Here are three best practices we recommend:
Key considerations for terminal operators when upgrading technology:
1. Stay up-to-date on terminal technology
As software and other technologies age, they become more expensive to maintain, more prone to problems, and a greater security liability for your terminal. Terminals of any size should plan to set aside a budget for keeping technology up-to-date.
“We find a lot of terminals that have old, outdated technology—including some that’s not even supported by the manufacturer anymore,” he says. “Sometimes they want us to continue our integration with it. But that’s really hard to do.”
2. Involve your TOS vendor early in any tech upgrade discussions
TOS vendors often have standard integrations in place with certain vendors offering solutions your terminal wants to onboard. For that reason, it’s critical to run these upgrades by your TOS vendor to see if they can save your facility time and money on your tech investment.
These savings are greatest when you’re still at the beginning of tech upgrade discussions, rather than looping in your TOS vendor after the decision has already been made.
“We have a growing professional services team at Tideworks that puts top industry talent side-by-side with our customers to advise and consult them on the technology decisions that provide the biggest benefit to the terminal,” says Bhat. “It’s really about helping our customers make the best investment possible.”
3. Prioritise flexibility and adaptability in your technology investments
No one tech upgrade will unlock data connectivity for your terminal. But your tech investments should always prioritise technologies that are equipped to support the plug-and-play connectivity your terminal ultimately aspires to achieve.
By investing in technology that aligns with your future vision for operational data flow, you’ll gradually move closer to your data connectivity goals and achieve long-term cost efficiencies in your terminal tech investments.
Incremental value is the goal
For terminals in the early stages of digitalisation, true data connectivity is going to take some time to achieve. And that’s okay. In fact, that slow-and-steady approach is what Tideworks recommends to its customers.
“I would be wary of anyone putting forward a black-box solution and saying, ‘This will solve all the ills of the terminal,’” says Bhat. “It’s wishful thinking, and it’s going to have costly consequences for any terminal implementing that technology and trying to enable it without knowing what the results are going to be.”
Tideworks’ Mainsail and IPRO solutions are built for this incremental approach, equipping marine and rail terminals with a modern TOS that is flexible and adaptable to your data connectivity needs.
See for yourself—request a demo today.