As terminal operations become increasingly complex, Navis remains committed to providing best-in-class solutions for its customers, and N4 3.3 offers a broad set of new features and enhancements to make it easier to administer and maintain N4.
For the launch of N4 3.3, Navis implemented a major improvement in its software development approach – leveraging an agile methodology – to improve the ability to build quality software and innovate by utilizing rapid feedback loops as part of the development cycle. With frequent quality and delivery checkpoints built into the process, the new software’s features help Navis customers unlock greater operational efficiency. Navis has also reduced its release cycle to four months in order to be more responsive to growing industry challenges and market needs.
“As the industry continues to evolve, with carriers adding larger vessels to their fleets and shippers demanding greater predictability and real-time insight into their cargo, it is critical that our customers are able to provide the most efficient terminal operations possible,” said Scott Holland, VP of Product Management at Navis. “Through implementing the agile methodology, we were able to further build on the capabilities and services we offer, and the release of N4 3.3 is the next step in delivering our clients the most innovative terminal software to address current and future industry needs.”
New features and enhancements in N4 3.3 include:
Enhanced Application Performance including core performance improvements in XPS. The method XPS uses to find containers has been refactored to significantly decrease the time required to find a container to update or delete. This improvement will be most noticeable in sites where XPS has over 100,000 containers in the cache, but will benefit all sites. Additional improvements allow users to influence N4 message processing by systemically distributing message processing across different nodes.
Decking History Insights provide users with better insights into system decisions to fine tune parameters and increase yard utilization. The Decking History view reflects all decking work instructions that have been dispatched.
Rail Operations Support for terminals using wide span gantry cranes that are serviced by straddle carriers and empty handlers.
Block Impact Minimizer to optimize the loading of empty containers to the vessel by swapping empties from different yard blocks. This ensures the empty workload is distributed across the various blocks, minimizing transfer zone congestion and decreasing unproductive container moves, resulting in higher yard and quay-side productivity.
N4 System Administration and Maintenance Improvements to help IT teams administer, maintain and support N4 systems.