Source: New Straits Times
MALAYSIA'S new age port Westport Malaysia is leveraging information technology in its operations to achieve higher productivity and boost service.
Armed with a highly-skilled IT workforce, the port has succeeded in going electronic to streamline many of its processes and provide value-added services for its customers.
Known to many as the nation's fastport, flexiport and garden port, Westport will now add another feather to its cap as the nation's first "eterminal".
The concept of the e-terminal is to enable a total electronic end- to-end information workflow that will create a seamless and paperless environment at its terminal.
With the launching of the e-terminal, Westport is all geared to bring the maritime community into a different dimension of cargo handling where movement of freight will be executed with just a click of the mouse.
The e-terminal comprises several modules that involve pre- shipment processes, vessel operations and financial transactions.
Fully developed in-house, the port's IT team has designed a comprehensive system that allows its customers to fully exploit the e-terminal which has been carefully engineered to provide faster and more responsive services to customers.
At present, the e-terminal includes WestportLINK (the port's interactive website), e-booking and e-haulage (for booking containers and hauliers to collect boxes) and e-submit (for automated load or discharge listing and exchange of data information in a standardised format shared by shipping lines and ports).
The e-DO is a paperless transaction for forwarding agents to obtain their gate passes. The e-manifest efficiently uploads the manifest onto its New Generation Conventional Cargo systems. The e- loading, or electronic loading, shortens the submission process and allows greater efficiency in vessel and yard planning.
The e-gate simplifies and expedites the tedious process of exporting or importing boxes. The e-tdr is the electronic terminal departure report which allows shipping lines to have quicker access to reports on vessels. E-berthing is an auto-driven system for vessel-berthing activities.
The port is also enhancing the efficiency of its billing procedures and streamlining its payment process with e-billing.
As an organisation that places priority on transparency and fairness, all its procurement and bidding activities will be executed via e-procuring and e-bidding.
Hence, the entire process of exporting a box from booking till the time it leaves the port on the designated vessel, and vice- versa, will be executed electronically with maximum speed, minimal human intervention and zero errors.
As time is of the essence in this industry, Westport's eterminal will be the driver for the port's greater efficiency and higher productivity while reducing operational costs substantially at the same time.
As processes are expedited, real-time data is obtained and a more responsive service is created. This would indubitably result in higher customer satisfaction and foster better customer relationships for the port.
Known to the national industry as trail blazers, Westport is confident that e-terminal will be a success with users.
As the port's volume continues to rise and processes become more tedious and complicated, the employment of IT is definitely a strategy to spearhead the industry and to maintain its position as the nation's premier port of the next generation.
