Industry suffers a ‘Navis’ breakdown!

Some of the container shipping companies running liner services to SA are up in arms about the crisis situation being caused by this month’ glitches in the Navis port management system that Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) relies on to keep things moving – and costly delays to ships’ berthing are the result. This led to a crisis meeting being held last Thursday (May 23) between the lines and TPT at the offices of the SA Association of Ship Operators and Agents (Saasoa) in Durban. The official words from Peter Besnard, acting CEO of Saasoa, were that there were a lot of glitches in the system this month due to a systems update on the May Day holiday, but that TPT was working round the clock to sort things out, supported by a whole team from the system suppliers, Navis. However, he did admit that despite consolatory words from TPT and promises that they were doing their best, they didn’t reveal any expected completion date. And this remained a problem, he added. However, one of the shipping company executives whose line was represented at the meeting really had his hackles up. He complained to FTW that his company had lost millions these last few weeks because of vessel delays and their lack of productivity – added to by ships having to slip certain ports to keep up to schedule, and the costly exercise of burning expensive bunker fuel with the ships having to get up to full steam. And he didn’t accept that TPT was trying to achieve a world first by linking all its terminals up to a central server. A good system might be the result, he said, “but good for who, only for TPT”. “We feel the system hasn’t got the strength to meet the demands made on it. It’s not running at 100%, and it’s a problem that has been happening week-in, week-out ever since it was installed.” Two other executives of lines involved in the meeting were less heated about the matter, but still agreed that the losses they were facing were worrying. Said one: “There have been a lot of glitches, leading to downtime and inaccessibility to the system. However, TPT agreed that they would liaise a lot more closely with the lines.” Another said it had to be accepted that the glitches had caught TPT unawares, and that they didn’t have a back-up plan in place. “But you have to remember that every 15 minutes of downtime is a three-to four-hour delay in the logistics chain.” So, until TPT and their Navis support team get things up to speed, it’s still a big issue amongst the lines. And there’s no indication of just how long it will take.