Investing in automation at Port of Lyon
Mathieu Duval, Président du Directoire, Lyon Terminal/Port of Lyon gives the French perspective on Autostore
About the author:
Graduating from the Paris Business School in 1977, Mathieu Duval began his career in transportation management while serving with the French military (Ministry of Finance) on Africa's Ivory Coast. Beginning the 1980s working for French charter airline AeroTour, Duval spent much of the decade as a shipping manager for the SAGA (UMARCO) Group in Africa, latterly overseeing its agency operations in Le Havre. In 1992, he was appointed general manager of Lyon Terminal, taking on the management of Port de Lyon-Edouard Herriot in 1995. Since 2004, Duval has additionally been responsible for all port activities at the Compagnie Nationale du Rhône.
Welcome to the Rhône-Saône transport axis ...
The Rhône, in southern central France, is one of our most important waterways: broad, long and deep, it has ensured Lyon's significance as a commercial centre since the 15th century. Extensively developed since the 1930s, Edouard Herriot - Port of Lyon - lies 196 miles (315km) up the River Rhône from Marseille on the Mediterranean coast, France's largest port. Lyon and the Rhône-Alpes region - between northern and southern Europe and bordering Switzerland and Italy - is the second most important French commercial region after Paris. With close access to three high speed TGV train stations and sitting at the convergence of five major Autoroutes, Port of Lyon is within a single day's journey from more than 180 million people and was officially declared a sea port in 1979. As one of the largest European logistics hubs, Lyon is naturally home to many transport companies.
Nearly 12 per cent of France's national freight traffic is carried on the 375 miles (550km) of navigable waterways that make up the Rhône-Saône axis. The Rhône can handle sea-going vessels up to 2,000 tons along the 196 miles (315km) from Lyon to Fos in less than 30 hours and the Saône can take barges up to 4,000 tons on 136 miles (220km) of canalised river. Edouard Herriot is owned by the Compagnie Nationale de Rhône and currently operates two container terminals - T1 at Port de Lyon and T2 approximately two thirds of a mile (1km) away. Th software infrastructure is provided for us by Autostore, a leading European container terminal management system (CTMS) that controls every aspect of the Edouard Herriot T1 and T2.
The global port industry is undeniably facing intense pressures to maintain growth and deliver shareholder value. Increased cargo throughput. Maximised space utilisation that's environmentally sympathetic. Lower costs. Improved forecasting. Better margins. Efficient labour management within regulatory boundaries like the EU Time Directive. Then there are intermodal transshipment issues driven by the pressures on our regional and national transport networks - all within the wider context of global deregulation and a constantly changing regulatory framework.
All these pressures point to three necessary conclusions that underpin our future competitiveness and growth: we must maximise then optimise our facilities; we need flexible tools to help make better management decisions; we need to make the whole greater than the sum of its constituent parts. And the foundation of such a philosophy lies within applying a resilient, proven and innovative technology infrastructure.
Extensive operations ...
Edouard Herriot - the Port of Lyon - is the main advance port for Marseille. It comprises two terminals: T1 and T2. Located close to the city centre and developed extensively from 1937 onwards, Edouard Herriot receives, holds and despatches containers, by river and sea, road, and rail, making it one of the most important import/export centres serving shipping in the Mediterranean. An extensive intermodal operation, T1 employs 35 people and currently handles around 195,000 twenty foot units (TEUs) of container traffic each year - with 25 per cent being processed by river barge, 25 per cent by rail and the remaining 50 per cent by road. T2 increases total container throughput to over 300,000 TEUs.
Strong recent growth - and significant intended expansion - has meant that our existing container management system was rendered obsolete and needed replacing with a solution that offered genuine flexibility, a real-time view of operations across multiple planned port sites plus a range of decision-support capabilities. Port of Lyon originally was a depot processing empty containers and we had since made the switch to full container transshipment operation using river barge and train. Road haulage between Lyon and Marseille is our principal competitor and for that it requires a fast turnaround of between just and 15 minutes per container.
The technology foundation for our next generation of end-to-end container management is provided by Autostore, developed and installed by our preferred supplier, UK-based Central Systems & Automation - a well-established provider of integration services and packaged solutions to the port management and logistics industries.
T1 has a combined in-gate and out-gate facility through which road receipts and despatches are controlled and we use Reach Trucks for transferring containers to and from the quayside, for rail wagon and road vehicle loading/unloading and for stock movements within the terminal. A single, fixed gantry crane manages the ship-to-shore and shore-to-ship operations with room for a single river barge to be berthed directly beneath the crane: each barge is moved gradually along the quayside in order to complete a vessel load/unload operation.
Day-to-day management ...
Automating the day-to-day management of the port means we can allocate and co-ordinate all container movement instructions in real-time. With operational parameters we have defined, Autostore automatically determines the optimal storage and loading positions for all containers from the moment they enter the terminal until they leave - whether by road, rail or river.
The throughput and operation of Edouard Herriot T2 is broadly to be similar to that of T1 with the exception that T2's gantry crane is rail-mounted and able to move up along the quay. T2's gantry crane can service two barges berthed alongside each other simultaneously and the quay will accept four docked barges at any one time. In addition, T2's crane includes storage/staging for export stock beneath it with import stock held in the back-reach of the crane.
Investment programme ...
The investment programme at Lyon and its affiliated satellite ports is significant. The whole of the Rhône-Saône axis - and its connection to the port facilities at Marseille - is a major national and international freight hub that relies on maintaining a top-to-bottom competitive edge. The automation programme is the core of this new competitiveness, delivering cost efficiencies, space efficiencies, and throughput maximisation. Plus, it's easy for our people to use - whether dockside or in the boardroom.
We looked carefully at how ocean-type container ports like Le Havre and Marseille operate and it was clear that their deep-sea operations did not match our barge and rail approach. We needed a different solution and in a wide-ranging review of those available, Autostore offered us the quality, flexibility and depth of capability we were seeking. In particular, it performs well against US transport safety regulations that require container operators to be able to provide a clear and precise audit trail of cargo content and their transshipment movements. The result? Fast and accurate container management - our keys to competitiveness and improved customer service.
Our automation programme doesn't end there: from the mouth of the Rhône in the south to the Saône in the north are several additional river ports that will be remotely managed by Autostore directly from the Lyon hub. Representing phases three to eight of the project, the additional ports are located at Fos, Arles, Valence, Mâcon, Chalon and Pagny. Although the TEU throughput at remotely-managed ports will initially be low compared to T1 and T2, additional Autostore management modules will be added as their capacity increases.
At T1, the new system is licensed for a single port operator to manage all container traffic with rail operators, shipping lines and road hauliers. Four reach trucks transfer containers from road vehicle or rail wagon into storage, another vehicle or rail wagon. All vessel loading and unloading is performed by the single gantry crane with reach trucks transferring containers to and from the staging location beneath the crane. T1's combined in-gate and out-gate controls all receipts and despatches by road while train and vessel load and discharge lists will be prepared on Autostore using system client dialogues or from interface data.
The controller then uses the system to release the list of container moves to the mechanical handling equipment (MHE) across a wireless LAN. With radio data terminal (RDTs) installed in the cabins of all the man-riding MHE, it's easy to interpret the container movement instructions received centrally from Autostore - and as the T1 crane is fixed, it does not require the full position determination system (PDS) that will be operated aboard the crane planned for T2. Dock teams use hand-held RDTs operating over a wireless network to read and verify the security check digits on each container, ensuring that the right cargo moves are made each time. In total, T1 has 15 CTMS users covering the gatehouse, planning and maintenance functions for the terminal.
Building for the future ...
T2 has a separate in-gate and out-gate through which receipts and despatches by road are to be controlled and an additional two reach trucks are be used. As for the T1 MHE, vehicle-mounted RDTs send and receive data across a wireless LAN. T2's rail-mounted gantry crane is also be equipped with a Position Determination System (PDS).
The PDS connects the new system to the gantry crane's own control system and combines positional information with twist-lock status to map the information and provide the driver, via the RDT, with crane and container position. The PDS also feeds this information back to the system - thus ensuring that the right container makes the right move to right part of the stack every time - accurately and safely. In addition, two hand-held RDTs will perform a similar checking function for each container and a further five CTMS will look after the gatehouse processing and management functions.
The critical thing about this project is Autostore's ability to connect all eight phases together to create a network of container ports that can function as one, offering a range of clearly identified services based on a common system. With up to eight ports involved, fast and centralised management reporting is crucial. We need a real-time, global view of operations with which we can analyse port performance and balance-off relative capacity and resources to give us the tightest possible operation that delivers improved margins. Autostore gives us this - plus full Internet and Extranet connectivity that will improve our customer service.