TCS Deploys Digital Solution for London’s New Freight Ferry Port While WFH During COVID-19 Lockdown
Mumbai: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS) a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organisation, has successfully deployed TCS DynaPORT, a state-of-the-art terminal operating system at Tilbury2 Ro-Ro, Forth Ports’ latest unaccompanied freight ferry terminal opened recently in London. TCS implemented this solution on schedule, 100% virtually during the COVID-19 lockdowns, leveraging the Secure Borderless Workspaces™ (SBWS™) model.
Tilbury2 Ro-Ro terminal is a 500,000-freight unit ferry terminal at the port of Tilbury on the River Thames, London. The bespoke terminal operates on unaccompanied freight mode, importing and exporting freight containing vital supplies for the UK, including food, drink and medicines to and from continental Europe. To streamline its operations, establish world-class benchmarks, and support its future growth, Forth Ports selected TCS’ DynaPORT as its terminal operating system. The platform is already implemented within Forth Ports Lo-Lo container terminals operating at the Port of Tilbury and the Port of Grangemouth in Scotland, allowing all three freight terminals to operate on the same IT platform.
TCS DynaPORT is a one-stop digital terminal operating solution that streamlines order-to-invoice processes and supports multi-modal (vessel, rail, truck and barge) and multi-purpose (container, break-bulk, liquid bulk, dry bulk and ro-ro) requirements. It currently powers over 80 terminals across the globe.
The implementation, which commenced in February, was interrupted by the lockdowns announced soon after. The TCS team adopted SBWS, a transformative operating model that allows organizations to fully and seamlessly transition to virtual workspaces. Subsequently, all phases of the implementation – from design, development and testing to deployment, configuration and training – were successfully executed virtually in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new terminal and the new automated system, support the drive towards having vessels spend less time in the port, reducing costs and turnaround times and facilitating faster transport of vital goods. Additionally, containers and trailers can be on the motorway network and on their way, in under an hour.
“In the Business 4.0™ world, port operators, who are vital nodes in global supply chains, are embracing new technologies to reimagine their operations, enabling greater transparency, traceability and velocity,” said Sridharan Narayanan, Global Head – Ports & Cargo, Travel, Transportation and Hospitality business, TCS. “We are delighted to deepen our long-standing partnership with Forth Ports and partner them in this strategic growth and transformation initiative. We have leveraged our deep contextual knowledge to design a solution that best addresses Forth Ports’ business needs and deployed it on schedule with both our teams working from home using SBWS. With this success, we have set a new global benchmark in enterprise platform deployment for terminal operators.”
Stuart Wallace, Chief Operating Officer, Forth Ports, said: “On top of the usual challenges involved with a project of this scale, the COVID-19 pandemic put pressure on us all to find flexible ways to work to keep the port opening on schedule. The successful implementation of this brand-new system was only made possible by TCS’ ability to deliver at short notice and with agility. The team had an intimate understanding of the detail of our requirements and were able to produce efficient and user-friendly solutions that are fit for purpose; in this regard the TCS team is in a class of its own. The expertise and knowledge of the TCS team was combined with that our own MIS staff and that of third-party suppliers to collaboratively deliver the solution on time.
The system has more than lived up to expectations; with vehicle turnaround at world-class levels and highly rated vessel performance in action within a week. Even when sudden changes or additions needed to be made, the configurability and adaptability of the system allowed us to quickly evolve the technology to support these changes. We have a long-standing partnership with TCS and, as always, this brilliant result was achieved through a lot of hard work and dedication from their team.
TCS have, in conjunction with Forth Ports, progressed their product to a new level of capability, thereby expanding their opportunities in the marketplace and in so doing provided Forth Ports with an excellent solution for one of our largest single investments.”