Container Inventory - Terminal Tracker Module

Container Inventory in Terminal Tracker

The main functionality of the Container Inventory module happens in the background. The Terminal Tracker On-Board Controller (OBC) monitors the PLC for a change in the twist lock pin state. When the twist lock pins (un)latch to a container, the OBC will generate an event. At the Terminal Tracker server, the event is pushed to the TOS interface. The message sent to the TOS includes the vehicle designation, the move stage (lift or drop) and the slot location, which improves yard inventory accuracy and efficiency by immediately returning the vehicle to an idle or job list state. 

Terminal Tracker application allows users to apply the Container Inventory module functionality to all vehicles, a group of vehicles and to disable the TOS interface, reverting the operation to a manual mode. Through the user interface is also possible to configure Virtual Slots to allow containers to be placed outside the physical yard slots.

Container Inventory Messaging

Terminal Tracker has a different set of TOS messages for each process automation task (i.e. Container Inventory, Operator Login etc.) that can be manually enabled or disabled. This allows a container terminal to tune the automation to meet its operational requirements.

Container Inventory by Pool

Terminal Tracker allows for container handling equipment (CHE) pools to be configured to force a change in the TOS interface reporting. When a vehicle transitions to a pool configured to ‘Force On’ TOS messaging, Terminal Tracker will enable the Container Inventory event reporting to the TOS if it is currently disabled. The opposite will occur if a vehicle transitions into a pool that is set to ‘Force Off’.

Virtual Slots

To assure that a container dropped outside the mapped yard slots can be planned and picked up by a container handling equipment, Terminal Trackers allow Virtual Slots to be created. These areas can be easily configured via Terminal Tracker user interface so that a yard slot name can be generated when a container is dropped by any CHE. This position is then sent to the TOS, and the container can be planned for future moves without trouble.