Having operated its’ first ship in September 1995, IT Management Systems have continuously evolved to manage the needs of a growing business, however in almost 20 years of operations, the terminal, its management and customers have not experienced a complete shut-down of activity in order to completely migrate to a state of the art industry standard Terminal Operation System (TOS). An event that took place between the hours of 13,00 hrs. and 19,00 hrs., on Thursday June 12, a day that shall remain as a milestone in the history of the company.
All operational activity was suspended for a period in order to migrate all data records from the legacy system to NAVIS N4. The migration itself only took a few hours, with a final validation of a successful transfer taking place before operations recommenced, as planned at 19,00 hrs. with first three cranes being deployed, followed by a further three during the shift. Commencing June 13 / 01,00 hrs., MCT was ready to assume “normal” service.
Carmine Crudo, General Manager, whose responsibilities include IT Services commented: “… all businesses rely on modern, efficient IT Systems and we are no different. Given the size of the project, there is always the potential that there will be hiccups, with things going wrong. In this case, thanks to the detailed planning, training and expertise of the people the migration has been a complete success, right first time, on time and on budget. We are now dependent on the fruits of the training programme as users need to familiarize themselves with a new system and this has manifested itself during the first days generating a backlog, but I am confident that they will rise to the challenge and quickly develop their skillsets to maximize the benefits of the new system overall in favor of our valued customers. I would like to thank all involved in the project for their dedication and commitment in making this substantial business development a success namely MCT IT Services and all operatives, our partners DSP and NAVIS Corporation. IT Services will remain vigilant, whilst support staff will remain on site for a short while to cope with any eventuality. Thanks to them all for a job well done”.
Domenico Bagalà, Managing Director added: “adding 21st century technology to the already existing infrastructure can only serve to enhance an existing excellent product that is available to our customers. This investment will ensure that MCT continues to be ready to respond to the needs of large scale transshipment hub activity. The upgrade programme took place with more than 47,000 TEUs in yard, a number of ships completing operations and the regular demand ready to be berthed and operated upon full resumption of activity. Perhaps a slowdown in quay side performance was inevitable, initially and we thank our customers for their understanding. It has been a huge undertaking and we even had to manage one ship operation both with the old system and the new system to meet customer requirements”.