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.