SSA Marine Eyes Advanced Technology

SSA Marine plans to make a huge gamble on new container crane technology which, if successful, will revolutionize cargo-handling in the port industry.

The Seattle-based terminal operator is negotiating with China's Shanghai Zanhua Port Machinery Company, one of the largest manufacturers of container cranes in the world, on a new system of electrified guide rails to move containers throughout the yard at a terminal.

If SSA becomes ZMPC's first customer, it will install the completely automated "low frame electric bridges" at its Pier J facility in Long Beach, said Ed DeNike, chief operating officer.

DeNike predicts that the ZMPC system would triple Pier J's throughput capacity on its existing footprint. Container moves per-hour, per-crane, which average about 26 to 27 in Southern California, would increase to 40 to 50 moves per hour.

The current International Longshore and Warehouse Union contract calls for two drivers per container crane per eight-hour shift. That would be reduced to one driver, and all of the drivers would work from the terminal's control tower.

If the system functions as envisioned, productivity would soar and the terminal operator's costs would go way down. "The numbers are mind-boggling," DeNike told a port productivity conference in Long Beach sponsored by Cargo Business.

During the deep economic recession, terminal operators on the West Coast have seen their costs increase as rapidly as their cargo volumes have declined. The waterfront contract signed last year with the ILWU increased pension, welfare and wage costs 18 percent, DeNike said.

Shipping lines, truckers and port authorities are all pressuring terminal operators to increase their productivity. West Coast terminal operators could increase productivity by imitating Hong Kong -- placing more transtainers in the container yard and assigning more longshoremen to yard work.

This would increase container moves per hour, but the terminal operator would go out of business because the man-hours paid would be unbearable. DeNike said the number of man-hours a terminal operator pays per container handled determines the terminal's profits or losses.

Total longshore wages and benefits on the West Coast are now about $100 an hour. Since a number of positions include overtime pay, it costs a terminal on average $1,000 per longshoreman per day, DeNike said.