ICT & Provision of information

Play the Terminal ‘Safe T-Game’

Exclusive paper from TBA’s Bert de Groot:

 Serious gaming: improve performance, decrease disruption time and increase safety in semi- and automated container terminals

 WHY?

The trend in container terminals worldwide is towards more and more automation to reduce costs and improve performance. The most recent terminal designs are fully automated with next-to-no workers in the action onsite when terminal operations are running smoothly. Yet in the event of sudden disruption, people have to go onsite to solve pressing issues before time and expenditure is negatively affected. On site, the risks are different in an automated environment than in a non automated environment, as automated equipment has no human awareness to the dangers of people working in the terminal arena.

In the Port of Rotterdam, two fully automated terminals are being built and are close to live operations, and together with the University of Delft, the Dutch Institute for Advanced Logistics (Dinalog), Rotterdam World Gateway, APM Terminal’s Maasvlakte II, and several small and medium-sized enterprises, TBA is engaging in a big collective research project (SALOMO). The project began back in 2011 and is pioneering insight into shared situational awareness within the container supply chain. This research is committed to reducing onsite risks which have a negative impact on supply chain operations, safety and productivity.

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By creating a shared situational awareness, this can foster a higher occupational consciousness around the risks which exist in the (semi-) automated terminal environment, thus improving overall productivity by reducing the amount of disruptions in a terminal, and the time disruptions detract from smoothly functioning terminal operations. One special focus we have is on interdependent risks in which multiple parties are involved. These can be significantly reduced through a better understanding of the implications of decisions, as well as a focus on communication throughout the supply chain.

TBA has developed a serious game within this research project to train onsite personnel for day to day operations in fully and semi automated terminals. This solution is nurturing a climate of awareness among personnel about the impact of their decisions on others, on operations, and on mitigating existing risk factors.

WHAT?

The serious game is the world’s first terminal game. Pioneered by TBA, it is heralded as the next generation of innovation in training automated terminal personnel based on actual operations; not approximations. By connecting the TBA TEAMS equipment control software (used in the live operation of running automatedquay cranes, straddle carriers and automated guided vehicles), with our CONTROLS emulation software (which runs the virtual terminal and is utilised for optimising and testing terminal operating system software) with a virtual reality game engine, we have created ‘Safe T-Game’.

Within Safe T-Game, players can walk around in a virtual terminal which has the exact layout and copies the exact behaviour of a real live terminal, with the game customised to any unique terminal to replicate its exact circumstances. In the game at present, one is either a dispatcher or a maintenance technician (See Figure 1):

At present, along with our research partners, we are testing how to train several risk awareness subjects. These include key areas such as situational understanding, safety procedures, how to handle disruptions to minimise impact on performance, how to handle equipment breakdown, as well as communications effectiveness. Preliminairy tests have shown technical personnel to behave in the game as they would in real life, and thereby this has exposed behaviour which poses a potential risk when practiced in the terminal arena. In addition, we have discovered that effective communication from the operations room to outside personnel seems to be an incredibly important subject in order to quickly reduce risks for technical personnel.

THE FUTURE?

Together with the two terminals at the Port of Rotterdam and the University of Delft, TBA is currently expanding the Safe T-Game into a full training suite that is capable of training dispatchers, technical maintenance personnel and external personnel that occasionally need to work on site. Depending on the terminal procedures and the training demand, the subjects for training will be developed in 2015, and by then, the game will also become further advanced technically.

One example of a foreseen technical development is the use of the Oculus Rift virtual reality glasses. These will provide a maintenance technician with an even more realistic experience in the virtual terminal. Preliminary testing has been done in connecting a terminal operating system (TOS), where the operation in the virtual terminal will then replay actual outside images from a live operation, as planned and executed in the TOS. This allows personnel to recreate live disruptions, as well as to vary and evaluate their responses, in order to witness the impact they have on the performance of the TOS.

Other extensions which are also under evaluation include the addition of myriad equipment maintenance scenarios featuring a variety of disturbing and distracting factors (such as harsh terminal sound), the implementation of additional roles, or the option to use the virtual terminal for one time only as a quick training tool on procedural behavior and safety risks in automated environments. The key to this technology is that it is fun as well as educational; imagine putting on the virtual reality glasses in a reception room and then having the ability to walk anywhere in a terminal, climb a quay crane or jump on an AGV, seeing up-close how terminal operations work. Remember; in real life, very few people get the opportunity to go on site at a terminal!

TBA envision the serious game as the next generation training tool to improve performance and safety for semi- and automated terminals. Through increasing awareness and insight of terminal personnel and the impact of their minute, day-to-day decisions, we believe drastic changes can be made in increasing productivity, efficiency and safety. This solution we have devised is the only serious game to connect real operating software with training scenarios to mimic live operations and human behaviour as closely as possible in the terminal arena. In short; TBA is ahead of the game with Safe T-Game.

More information

For more information contact Sophie Zijp: zijp@dinalog.nl or Paul Huijbregts: huijbregts@dinalog.nl

By Porttechnology.org

 

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