• Ports and terminals

Container weighing speed boost for busy Spanish port

The Spanish port of Yilport Ferrol has been able to offer a considerably faster service to its customers due to a 300% acceleration in weighing speed, since Strainstall installed its Container Weight System (CWS) there last year. The system streamlines the process, enabling the port to move goods faster, reducing costs and increasing customer numbers.

It was previously reported in Pelican that new, global regulations had been set up in 2016 holding vessel operators and marine terminal operators legally responsible for ensuring that all packed containers have a verified container weight before being loaded onto vessels.

As Yilport doesn’t have its own weigh bridge all containers have had to be weighed at an offsite facility, with the port covering the cost of paying an external company to hire the trucks to transport the containers back and forth. Warehouses were fast becoming congested with outbound and inbound containers taking up valuable operational space, and time-bound service targets had been put at risk.

However, Diogo Pereira de Castro, director at Yilport Ferrol says since installation, the port’s container weighing speed has increased by 300% with the team now processing 12 containers per hour (at five minutes per container) compared to the four containers per hour (15 minutes per container) using their previous process.

‘From concept to installation, the Strainstall team was responsive, professional and reliable,’ he says. ‘Their solution is equally impressive – it delivers a considerably faster service for our customers.’

‘We were delighted to partner with Yilport Ferrol to help it deliver a faster service for its customers, while ensuring SOLAS compliance,’ says Ian Roberts, technical sales manager at Strainstall. ‘The system both meets obligatory safety standards and increases efficiency, which represents an important development for smaller ports which have to operate under tight budgets, allowing them to see an increase in the number of customers they can take in,’ he adds.

Strainstall specifically developed its Container Weight System (CWS) to fit on straddle carriers to offer a swift and efficient container weight verification service. It was first trialled at a Southampton-based container terminal in 2017 and an increasing number of international ports have been expressing interest in the system in a bid to reduce weighing time and costs, while maximising asset protection for customers.

CWS seamlessly integrates load monitoring technology onto existing container handling equipment, meeting the International Maritime Organisation’s amendments to SOLAS safety guidelines to deliver accurate weight verification data in real-time, as part of a port’s regular lifting cycle. CWS’s real-time load monitoring also provides immediate insights to ensure safe container weighing, stowage and transportation, with the option for container snag detection and centre of gravity data too.