New Zealand’s largest port, Port of Tauranga, has extended the life of several current systems and processes through the deployment of robots – saving the port money and time, and providing additional time to work through future plans.
Thomas Wansbone, Port of Tauranga financial controller, says the robots, developed by Quanton – New Zealand based artificial intelligence and automation specialists – have given additional life to important internal IT systems and freed up staff from mundane tasks.
The port deployed its first robot vessel invoicing system bot (Visbot) to import, validate and generating documentation for vessel invoicing.
Each vessel visiting the port, which handles around 41% of all shipping containers for New Zealand, must be charged certain costs, and each container on the vessel must be charged for customer-required movement, rail cost, security and power.
Data from the container terminal system has to be reconciled and imported into the proprietary Microsoft Access databases, from which supporting documents are created.
Wansbone says, “There was a lot of data to import, go through and do the reconciliations and while it took time, it didn’t require huge amounts of brain power – making it perfect for a robot.”
He says Visbot was an immediate success.
Handled manually, each vessel took an average of around one to two hours to process. Robot test runs saw each vessel processed in five to seven minutes.
“Visbot meant we didn’t have to increase headcount as volume grows and more vessels come in. Having the robot going in the background has kept a lid on the headcount and means that the team can put their minds to better use than just that mundane task.”
Another robot has also been deployed to automate debt reminders. While it’s an area Wansbone says hasn’t been a big issue for the Port, there were concerns when Covid hit that debtor numbers – previously very small – could increase.
The port had no automatic reminder system in place, relying on its team to monitor and follow-up if clients fell behind in payments.
Chasebot looks at a table with all outstanding debtors and, based on how many days payment is overdue, sends reminder emails, more formal letters or a warning that a credit stop would be applied.
Unlike Visbot, Chasebot doesn’t use traditional RPA, instead it’s written in C-Sharp, minimising licensing costs.
“Our technology-agnostic approach means we can come up with the best fit solution for clients,” says Garry Green, Quanton managing director. “We weren’t trying to force one technology over every problem. Instead, it’s a case of ‘what’s the problem’ and then finding something that can solve that specific problem in the best possible way.”
While Wansbone can’t say if Chasebot has reduced the number of bad debts – they had few to start with – he says it has provided a safeguard, ensuring no debtors slip through.
Another robot has also been deployed to send out invoices.
Wansbone says the port is continuing to look at opportunities for automation, with the container terminal – with a large amount of data moving between systems – likely to be next to gain a robot.
“Hopefully once we get the first robot over there they will uncover other areas where it would be great to use robots,” he says.
While Wansbone is the first to admit Port of Tauranga’s use of robots isn’t on a grand scale, he says the moves made have been important improvements.
“We are able to extend the useful life of those proprietary systems. Eventually, as we are doing, we will need to update those systems, but instead of having to do it five or 10 years ago, it has given us this extra life which has been fantastic, saved us a lot of money and given us more time to work through things. And it’s helped save time for our small team.”