automated ports doing business in various parts of the
world. Estimates suggest those automation projects represent somewhere around $10 billion of investment.
“On the face of it, container ports seem ideal places to
automate. The physical environment is structured and
of readily collected and processed
data,” the report said. “Better
still, the value from automation
includes not only cost savings but
also performance and safety gains
from ports and the companies that
do business there.”
Yet in its survey of industry prac-
titioners, McKinsey found that
“real-world performance of most
automated ports doesn’t increase sufficiently in every mate-
rial way. Safety improves, the number of human-related dis-
ruptions (such as shift changes) falls significantly, and per-
formance becomes more predictable,” the report said. Still,
practitioners responding to the survey said they thought that
“these ports, especially fully automated ones, are generally
less productive than their conventional counterparts.”
Nevertheless, the survey indicated automation is a trend
gaining momentum. More than “80 percent of respon-
dents believe that in the next five years, at least half of all
‘greenfield’ port projects will be semi- or fully automated.
Brownfield projects—the total or partial conversion of
existing conventional ports—[will see] at least 50 percent
of the top 50 ports … initiate retrofitting plans or … add
automated equipment during the
next five years,” the report said.
The McKinsey study projects
that as ports navigate the automa-
tion challenge, they will migrate
beyond automation and enlarge their role from “manage to
orchestrate.”
At this stage, the report postulates that “every player—
terminal operators, trucking companies, railroads, ship-
pers, logistics companies, and freight forwarders—will be
And that, one could argue, is a future worth pondering.
