Latest Ports of Auckland automation bungle shows project needs to go on ice

The Mar­itime Union says Ports of Auck­land needs to cut its loss­es and put its automa­tion project on hold to alle­vi­ate pres­sure on New Zealand busi­ness­es.

And if man­age­ment won’t, then the Auck­land Coun­cil need to inter­vene before any more dam­age is done to the New Zealand econ­o­my.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary Craig Har­ri­son says with most busi­ness­es fac­ing stress through the lock­down, the actions of the Port Com­pa­ny could well be the tip­ping point lead­ing to busi­ness fail­ure and job loss­es.

Mr Har­ri­son says repeat­ed delays and prob­lems with automa­tion had com­bined with mis­man­age­ment of labour sup­ply to cre­ate a bot­tle­neck in the New Zealand econ­o­my.

He says it’s time the Port Man­age­ment were com­plete­ly hon­est with the Auck­land ratepay­ers and the New Zealand pub­lic, as each month anoth­er excuse is rolled out.

A pho­to tak­en on 13 Feb­ru­ary 2021 shows an exam­ple of how basic tasks are being bun­gled by auto­mat­ed strad­dles in the port.

Mr Har­ri­son says the inci­dent occurred when a 40ft ‘reefer’ (refrig­er­at­ed) con­tain­er was stacked on top of a 20ft con­tain­er by an auto­mat­ed strad­dle.

“The 40ft con­tain­er was bal­anced on top of the 20ft con­tain­er because the weight of the reefer motor on the big­ger con­tain­er bal­anced it. But once the auto­mat­ed strad­dle returned with anoth­er 40ft con­tain­er and stacked it three high and unlocked off it, then the stack became unbal­anced.”

“As can be seen in the pho­to­graph, the con­tain­er stack has tipped over and jammed under­neath the spread­er on the strad­dle car­ri­er.”

Mr Har­ri­son says there must be a fun­da­men­tal fault in the yard stack­ing pro­gramme that allows an auto­mat­ed sys­tem to stack 40ft con­tain­ers on 20ft con­tain­ers, and this type of inci­dent should not be hap­pen­ing this far into the roll out of auto­mat­ed strad­dles.

He says the pro­posed inves­ti­ga­tion by Auck­land Coun­cil into what had gone wrong with the project was nec­es­sary but would be too late to help those cur­rent­ly hav­ing their busi­ness­es and lives dis­rupt­ed, and these peo­ple need assur­ance now that the dam­age being done will soon end.

The port is run­ning at reduced capac­i­ty, he says, and Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment kept shift­ing the dates when automa­tion would deliv­er.

“The ques­tion is can the automa­tion relieve the con­ges­tion that has ships wait­ing at anchor and ship­ping com­pa­nies charg­ing New Zealan­ders for the priv­i­lege, and will hir­ing more work­ers solve the prob­lem?”

Mr Har­ri­son says the first ques­tion can be answered by under­stand­ing what the cur­rent con­tain­er move rates are between the two oper­a­tions. These fig­ures will be known by the Ports of Auck­land and should be made pub­lic, he says.

“The indus­try stan­dards look for crane rates of around 30–33 moves per hour (con­tain­ers mov­ing from the ship to wharf). If the cur­rent crane rates are around 24–25 per hour this means ves­sels being at the wharf longer.”

“If the crane rates are below the 20 per hour mark this not only means the ships are in the port for longer, but also require more staff hours. Put sim­ply, what is the dif­fer­ence between mov­ing 2000 con­tain­ers at a rate of 30–33 per hour or at 18–19 per hour?”

Mr Har­ri­son says the cur­rent oper­a­tion has part of the Ports of Auck­land oper­at­ing with auto­mat­ed strad­dle car­ri­ers, and the oth­er part using man­u­al (human oper­at­ed) strad­dle car­ri­ers.

He says the import­ing of over­seas work­ers is a mas­sive cost and risk, when port man­age­ment were inex­plic­a­bly refus­ing to employ skilled local work­ers who would quick­ly be able to oper­ate machin­ery with some basic extra train­ing.

POAL had mem­bers of their cur­rent work­force who could be trained and rede­ployed, he says.

Mr Har­ri­son says port man­age­ment had gam­bled on an over ambi­tious automa­tion plan and had been too eager to replace work­ers with robots.

“POAL has not giv­en any assur­ance to New Zealan­ders the sit­u­a­tion won’t get worse. The Ports still have to con­vert two thirds of the remain­ing ter­mi­nal to automa­tion. The civ­il works alone head­ing into win­ter will take months and once they approach the tip­ping point there is no turn­ing back from automa­tion.”

The high risk approach had failed, but it appeared POAL man­age­ment were immune to any con­se­quences.

Mr Har­ri­son says if port man­age­ment can’t give New Zealan­ders a date when this will be fixed and an assur­ance they can deliv­er move rates of 30 con­tain­ers per hour then there is a real risk of what we are see now will become the norm.

It was report­ed last week that Maer­sk, the world’s biggest con­tain­er ship­ping line, has dropped 50 per cent of its nor­mal ship calls to the Ports of Auck­land and says it expects New Zealand’s con­ges­tion prob­lems will con­tin­ue until June.

Mr Har­ri­son says this will fur­ther impact on the finan­cial return to Auck­land ratepay­ers as the con­tain­er vol­umes move else­where.