A serious crash of Navis, the port management system, last week, which resulted in chaos at the Port of Durban, has sparked an immediate reaction from Transnet Port Terminals (TPT). In response to a call by the SA Shippers’ Council (SASC) for TPT to facilitate a meeting with stakeholders about the September 8 Navis downtime scenario, Deirdre Ackermann, TPT GM for enterprise information management systems, responded favourably. “This was to learn from TPT what caused the incident and to jointly collaborate around the best way to handle such incidents in future,” said Brenda Horne-Ferreira, CEO of SASC. “I can understand that it must be challenging out there and that the impact on the economy must be substantial. Also, that the system owners are not complacent about it. Everybody loses when this situation prevails.” But our two FTW spies at the meeting were both left somewhat puzzled. The Ackermann presentation, they told us, was too “technical” for them to fully comprehend – and they would have to fully study the presentation once they received copies before they could comment on it. But the good news, according to Dave Watts, marine director of the SA Association of Freight Forwarders (Saaff), was that TPT was certainly aware of the serious effect for port users of such a system downtime. He also welcomed the fact that Ackermann had confirmed that TPT would certainly be taking technical steps to correct the problem, and to prevent such a crash occurring in the future. Meanwhile, Horne- Ferreira said: “I believe we have to stand together as industry with Transnet to communicate the immediate plans of action as well as going forward to prevent it.” INSERT & CAPTION We have to stand together as industry with Transnet to communicate the immediate plans of action. – Brenda Horne-Ferreira
