With increasing customer demand, TPA upgraded its TOS to scale with its business

Oakland, CA - Navis, a part of Cargotec Corporation, and the provider of operational technologies and services that unlock greater performance and efficiency for the world’s leading organizations across the shipping supply chain, announced that Terminal Puerto Arica (TPA) has successfully gone live with the N4 terminal operating system to better manage the rapid rise in cargo handling volume, which has more than tripled since the company was founded in 2004.

TPA sits on the Port of Arica, which has the largest infrastructure in the region making it a preferred port for large vessels handling cargo from Chile, Bolivia and South of Peru. Since launching operations in 2004, TPA has tripled its cargo handling, to a total of 3.1 million tonnes in 2018. One of the main challenges TPA faced is the condition of free storage offered to Bolivian imported cargo for up to 365 days and 60 days for exported cargo. This generates high dwell times for cargo (12-day average permanence for imported containers and between 10 to 90 day permanence for imported break bulk), high levels of extra movements (5.5 extra moves for a delivery import box) and a high level of yard occupation, reaching maximums of 85% in some periods of 2018.

The rise in cargo volume came and increased operational challenges motivated TPA to replace its in-house operating system in favor of a world-class TOS capable of supporting the needs of the multi-purpose port. The decision to implement N4 was made in 2016 and went live September 1, 2018.  Following a successful go-live the terminal will rely on N4 to meet its aggressive goals of increasing vessel productivity from 18 to 22 moves per hour, increasing productivity of the yard equipment by 20 percent and decreasing extra moves in the yard by 40 percent.

“TPA has a deep-rooted culture of innovation and continuous improvement that allowed us to adapt quickly to the multitude of operational changes necessary to be successful under N4,” said Dante Battaglia, Operation Assistant Manager and Head project N4 implementation, TPA. “We have enabled a first level tool for our team with which we can provide better service to our customers. We underwent profound changes in the organizational structure of our company, integrating all systems around N4 to completely manage all types of port operations and we’re confident that we will see a substantial ROI as our operations become safer, faster and more efficient.”

“TPA is considered a port at the service of Bolivia and as such, has several unique conditions produced a complex operating system and unique challenges that had to be considered,” said Susan Gardner, VP and General Manager, the Americas, Navis. “Navis’ knowhow and seamless implementation experience, flexibility to operate multiple types of cargo, ability to integrate with various existing systems and intelligence in yard operations were all critical factors leading to a successful transformation for TPA.”