“We need to take advantage of everything that technology can provide”
The situation in the ports is getting worse and worse: entrepreneurs like Axel Plaß, Managing Director of the Zippel Group, report unprecedented bottlenecks. With the PE TU50 Box Liner, Krone presents a technical solution that can help ease the situation.
Q
ueues at international ports have been reported for months: Container ships are jammed for kilometres, goods are stuck, organisational processes come to a standstill again and again. For freight forwarders like Axel Plaß, Managing Director of the Zippel Group in Hamburg, which specialises in combined transport, this means constant replanning, rescheduling and rethinking. The situation at the ports is worse than ever, the entrepreneur explains: “I’ve been in the business for 32 years and the situation has never been so out of control. We are really facing huge problems.” He expects the pressure on supply chains hardly to ease in the next year or two either. “There are permanent structural problems behind this that we are carrying around. We have to be prepared that they cannot be solved in the short term.”
Fully automatic chassis
Technological solutions can nevertheless provide the answer. Krone is presenting the Box Liner PE TU50 at the IAA, a new, multifunctional chassis that adjusts fully automatically to the different container sizes. Drivers can operate it at the push of a button and don’t even have to get out of the tractor. Axel Plaß took a look at the pilot model at the Port of Hamburg. It is important to him to know about innovations in the industry and to test them for their practicality. And he sees the chassis not only as a way to save time when loading at the port, but above all as a step towards making the driver’s profession more attractive. “We are dependent not only in the commercial area, but especially among the drivers, and on finding people who still enjoy their job,” says the forwarder.
Axel Plaß
Especially for transport to the ports, drivers have a lot to do. “If you have to get out of the cab to lock the container by hand and manually adjust the chassis, put on gloves for that and maybe reach for a hammer, then that’s a few more work steps again. As a driver today, you think three times about whether you do that - or whether you’d rather drive swap bodies for the CEP service providers. We have to relieve these people as much as possible of the pressures that surround them.”
“I’ve been in the business for 32 years and the situation has never been this out of control.”
Axel Plaß
Manual adjustment takes time and space
At the terminal, too, manually adjusting a chassis not only costs time, but also the vehicle needs a parking space. “This is an organisational challenge: the terminals need extra lanes so that this process can be handled on site,” says Plaß. “It would be a lot easier in the future, using automatic chassis to minimise the turnaround time.” The high pressure on the ports also manifests itself in increasingly tightly timed journeys, the expert explains: “Every minute I can save there helps. After all, we still have to cover one or two kilometres in long-distance traffic. In this respect, innovative handling systems enable us to travel up to ten kilometres further at the end of the day. It’s a lot of little things that add up to be of great.”
The fully automatic chassis makes loading with containers more safely, more efficient and much easier for the drivers.
For Plaß, automation and digitalisation are therefore a must: “We have to use everything that technology can provide. “Because we will not be able to meet the challenges with personnel. “We have to keep the people who are now working in these jobs. The driving profession must remain attractive for them, otherwise they will turn their backs on the industry. We have no other choice than to push ahead with automation and digitalisation, thus making drivers’ lives easier and the disjointed logistics chains more or less manageable again. “
Ships come later - or not at all
Plaß reports from his daily practice: “It can well happen that we drive to Hamburg with a truck, and then it becomes clear that the ship for which we want to deliver does not arrive at the port as announced. Maybe it arrives in a week, in 14 days or not at all - anything is possible.” Delivered containers are waiting to be loaded and need storage space. It also happened to Plaß that the Westhafen rail access in Berlin was blocked when ground sills were checked since July: 1,000 Zippel containers stood there. Not only was the organisational effort to collect them with trucks a challenge, but also there was another crucial catch: with the railway, containers may be delivered five to seven days before the departure of a ship, with a truck only 24 or perhaps twelve hours are available.
Axel Plaß testete die Funktionalität des Box Liner TU 50 Traction Automatic am Hamburger Hafen bereits. Bisher gibt es erst ein Modell davon, die Serienproduktion könnte bald starten.
“At the moment, we are not able to provide data in these transport chains in such a way that we can plan with it,” explains Axel Plaß. “I can track all the ships on my mobile phone, but so far we don’t get the corresponding data in the transport chain in such a way that we can use it meaningfully. We still have one foot in the Middle Ages, while at the same time we are thinking in terms of the future. Any opportunity to make transport cheaper or avoid journeys altogether is valuable.” He sees the multiple problems as a serious threat to the German economy: “We are currently running into the wall with a head start. And I don’t think it will be the case that the economy here - as after the lockdowns in the wake of the pandemic - can shake itself once and go on, but rather we will be down for longer. Germany and the whole of Europe will become less and less attractive as a production and business location.” It is already happening that customers are switching to Greece, for example - there the logistics process costs a few hundred euros more, but you can be sure that everything will run smoothly.
PROFILE
Zippel Group The Hamburg-based freight forwarder operates a transport and logistics network with its own fleet of vehicles, uses rail as well as cargo ships as means of transport, in addition to trucks, and carries out sea container, general cargo, part and full load transport. The core business is the handling of consignments from Hamburg and Bremerhaven to the German hinterland and neighbouring European countries and back.
Many problems due to lack of automation
Technical solutions like Krone’s automatic chassis can point the way. “After all, I’m still sitting in a company that employs 200 people, I can’t and don’t want to close that down tomorrow,” says Plaß. “We have to face the challenges. That makes support through technological means all the more important. A large part of the current problems is caused by lack of automation and digitalisation. If someone sits somewhere, evaluating faxes and typing emails, mistakes happen. That has to change.” He would like to see more transparency from the ports and for them to enter into dialogue with all stakeholders. According to Plaß, ports currently still focus too much on the water side, because that is where their customers are, who pay for handling and storage. They are also (and quite rightly) the first point of contact for the terminals. “On the other hand, all this can only run smoothly if the outflow and inflow of containers are also well organised on the land side. Solutions like the Krone chassis can make a big contribution to this.”
