ARL last week launched its lashing planner software, the ARL Lashing Planner.
The tool provides visual planning of stevedore lashing teams working on the wharf side and on the vessels in container terminals and saves lashing gang costs by optimizing lashing resources in accordance with planned quay crane activities.
It additionally follows the execution of quay crane operations and safeguards that lashing assignments are adjusted according to real-life operations, and eventually substantiate the achieved savings.
Tapping into the planned container moves and hatch moves for the quay cranes assigned to incoming vessels and applying rules for optimal lashing team assignments, the Lashing Planner creates an optimized lashing team plan.
The plan handles shifting of the lashing teams across vessel bays in operation as well as bays across vessels at the quay side, and result in reduced costs by cutting the overall lashing team requirement by 15-20%.
The ARL Lashing Planner is currently being tested in a major Middle Eastern terminal, which is validating that it successfully resolves planning challenges with terminal planners, responsible for stevedore planning including assigning lashers, dowelmen and conemen.
ARL’s Singapore-based director and CEO, René Bendt, said: “Planning of lashers is an often overlooked area of resource utilization in a terminal, however, the potential for increasing the lashing teams’ productivity handling more vessel bays and more vessels with the same lashing teams, whether harvested directly by the terminal operator or via a sub-contractor, is definitely there”.
ARL has added an ROI calculator to the Lashing Planner portal, http://arl-shipping.com/terminals/lpt, allowing any terminal to quickly assess the potential savings by optimizing the lashing team planning.
In most cases, ARL said the payback for tool-supported optimized lashing planning is counted in a few months, allowing the savings to be harvested in the same year as the investment, avoiding any decision-heavy capital or cash flow challenges.
For additional information on the ARL Lashing Planner, contact Evgeny Drokov or visit www.arl-shipping.com, where interested parties can register for an on-line presentation.
