Research And Productivization Of Container Terminal Information Systems

With the increasing speed of globalization, far more frequent global business, as well as the rise of supply chain method, the role of modern port, especially pivotal port is becoming more and more important. Port operation and management is now blending with the whole chain of transportation, storage and delivery. As the propeller modern logistic distribution and the connection point of land transportation and water transportation, the entire process and all dimensional tracking and management has become the main service of modern ports, including functions of ports, multi-modal transportation, freight station, shipping agent, container CY and CFS, information management system, EDI application, and other supplementary functions as well.Now, much more attention is paid on the information technology in most container terminals of our country. Some have constructed their own information systems; some have bought foreign systems with high price. However, according to our survey, we found that those systems have some common weak points: incomplete system functions, overstocking, incompatible with existed system, no support for concurrent business and deep level data mining.To solve these problems, a container terminal information management system has been researched and developed, which could manage the real-time container information throughout the whole process from customs entering to ship unloading effectively. Based on the analysis of the container management mechanism nowadays and its problems, requirement analysis and function modeling of the system was given in the beginning of the paper and the method of automatic container location method was proposed. Then, related technologies for system design and development were studied and the design method of the main modules was given. The system was developed based on Client/Server (C/S) architecture using .NET technology. In the end, the application and running examples of the system were given, conclusions and summaries were made, suggestions and plans for the future work were proposed.Now, the system has been applied in Ningbo, Qingdao, etc. In addition, it is being promoted towards more container terminals.