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Associated British Ports Ltd (ABP) is the UK's largest port group, operating 21 ports that form a UK-wide network capable of handling almost every conceivable type of cargo. ABP is backed by investment in cutting edge facilities and equipment. It is also the owner/operator of one of the UK's premier inland rail freight terminals: Hams Hall.
Located near Birmingham, the terminal is adjacent to the Nuneaton-to-Birmingham railway line and handles deep-sea and short-sea traffic to and from ports like Southampton, Tilbury and Felixstowe - as well as traffic via the Channel Tunnel and domestic traffic from Scotland. Ongoing expansion and investment since 2002 has seen operational capacity at Hams Hall treble; ABP Hams Hall currently handles around 100,000 containers per annum, yet still has capacity to accommodate further growth.
Hams Hall spans 11 hectares (110,000m2), is Channel Tunnel SACTIFF security-approved, has 6,000 TEU of secure storage, four railway sidings and two reception lines. With seven reach stackers, one RTG and one shunting locomotive, Hams Hall is well placed to serve its customers that include shipping lines, 3PLs, FOCs and truck companies.
Autostore delivers market-leading control and visibility - in real-time ...
The key business driver for Hams Hall is efficient use of resources, space optimisation, minimising non-productive activity and maintaining truck/train turnaround times, in order to ensure customer service levels are maintained and costs are correctly matched to activity levels. At the heart of this efficiency drive sits Autostore, developed by leading intermodal supply chain integrators Central Systems & Automation. Proven worldwide, Autostore is the market-leading software solution of choice for the UK's inland container terminals. For the Hams Hall Team, the central advantage of Autostore is the real-time visibility and fingertip control it delivers.
Martin Philpott, ABP's manager of inland operations:
"Confidence in the operational data is everything, and with Autostore we have it. We've moved from approximate management to exact management. Reliable data has enabled us to have exceptional accuracy in our decision-making with respect to establishing necessary action and identifying improvement opportunities.
"This level of precise control over what we lift, move and store for who, when and where lets us allocate resources very precisely. Autostore has helped to smooth out the spikes and troughs of demand to deliver a faster, more flexible service for our customers and enhanced profitability for the business. We can offer typical truck turn times of 30 minutes or less, and often achieve gate-to-gate times as low as 12 minutes to receive, strip, reload and depart a truck. Such pace and accuracy supported by the scheduled automated reports we provide our customers directly from the Autostore system gives us terrific credibility."
One of the most important benefits that Autostore delivers for Hams Hall is cost reduction. For example, Autostore has helped ABP reduce the reach-stackers' travel distances - producing an immediate financial saving by cutting fuel and machine run hours and delivering environmental benefits by significantly reducing carbon emissions.
Martin Philpott, ABP's manager of inland operations:
Compared with the first six months of last year, Autostore has helped us reduce our average yard labour attended man-hours - down 42% in the same period - while increasing our productive lifts per man hour by an average of 89% in the same period this year. These are big performance improvements by any standards and they drop straight to our bottom line. We put our success down to the deployment of the right automation technology and using the right management system -combined with training and developing our people."
A full digital audit trail for every container movement on the site has enabled Hams Hall to create daily and seasonal traffic profiles. This enables Philpott's team to make the perfect match between resourcing on shifts and spikes in demand. For example, 7pm to 4am is the quietest period. With Autostore, the operations team can now switch resources accurately out of the quiet times and reallocate them to peak handling periods. The result? Controlled cost and optimised resources to maintain service levels - regardless of the time of day.
Andrew Fernandez, ABP business analyst at Hams Hall:
"Powerful reporting also enables us to analyse and spot trends. Autostore has empowered our people: because it's easy to configure and use, they now build and test different scenarios on an offline PC and this helps drive best practice and optimised processes. This means everyone is proactively thinking about improvement: that extra few per cent of efficiency applied liberally and independently across the operation is making a big impact."
Proactive terminal management delivering hard business benefits ...
The proactive impact of Autostore on Hams Hall's people cannot be underestimated. The data allows us to prepare meaningful KPI's and identify improvement opportunities that are communicated to all the team so everyone knows what they have to do to achieve a goal.
Autostore's EDI messaging also gives Hams Hall's customers more flexibility, as they can now better plan their own container traffic flows. Conversely, Hams Hall can also maximise the revenue opportunities on-site using Autostore's Activity Charging Module (ACM). With repetitive data entry errors eliminated, the Hams Hall team can identify productive and unproductive lifts to ensure that all productive ones are chargeable. Invoices can be automatically generated and pre-approved, reducing the billing cycle and enhancing the cashflow position of the business.
Hams Hall is also looking to implement EDI with its customers so that they can plan their throughput in advance, pre-announcing containers before they arrive. This gives Hams Hall's customers greater control over their own scheduling decisions, cuts the opportunities for error and helps smooth the flow of containers.
Martin Philpott: ABP's manager of inland operations:
"Autostore has made a major impact on our business - real-time data, reporting and control have improved our processes, and advanced automation has enhanced efficiency. The combined benefits have reduced our costs making a real contribution to our bottom line profitability, and above all improved the speed and accuracy of service provided to our customers."