Biggest Harbour Innovations | Full Documentary

foreign this is the center of the global economy a transshipment hub for goods from mobile phones to bananas to the clothes we wear we got to experience products that would never have reached us on a daily basis millions of tons across the oceans and millions of tourists reach every corner of the globe the extent to which great technological inventions transformed this spot is all but unparalleled it once inspired yearning it was the gateway to the world it was people from different communities from different countries connecting and speaking this was sort of very very important today it brings the world home to us and this at breathtaking speed the technology involved in making that smooth and quick and efficient is mind-boggling for the longest time muscle power was very much in demand here what counts today is technological know-how but having something that can just go and then stack it up I'll save a lot of time automation has made people's work easier and at the same time it has made them obsolete the main question would be where are the people changed our view of the world travel and where we can is and Will Remain the impulse generator for our future the port [Music] Rotterdam about thirty thousand ocean-going vessels including gigantic container ships like the master mask call to Port here year for year some 60 meters wide and 400 meters long it is among the world's largest vessels it Chicago almost 20 000 containers at the Port the clock is now ticking time is money here a lot of money man and machine tile away in the global rankings however the port of Rotterdam only came in 11th competition is getting harder so our customers they they always typically want the the lowest price so so we have to be as efficient as possible to actually be able to offer competitive prices uh they want the vessels in and out our productivity should be extremely high so we have to be as efficient as possible a global problem that Logistics is trying to address with cutting-edge software every minute ten thousands of containers need to be distributed the ship is often unloaded simultaneously to avoid lengthy and expensive restacking ship planners meticulously organize the processes on their computer color-coded boxes are moved virtually and allocated to the appropriate warehouses we see where the container is from what size and weight it is and where it is to be discharged it is either discharged here or in Asia or South America we prepare the plans on our computer system so our counterparts on the outside can continue working with it the competition is stiff if ports don't beat their customers needs ship owners will simply call it a different fault what's at stake today is time and efficiency and cost and we are dominated by Price Wars more than we think two-thirds of all goods are shipped by sea because it's one of the cheapest ways of transporting goods and so our waterways our oceans our seas are filled with containers that are shipping Goods all over the world the history of ports and Maritime trade is inextricably linked with the cultural history of humankind manners always endeavored to transport Goods across the ocean [Music] the first trade ship goes back to the Phoenicians as early as in the third millennium the first artificial ports were constructed [Music] they went on extended Mercantile Expeditions during which they founded numerous colonies in southern Europe apparently the city of Malaga was also founded by Phoenicians during the Middle Ages Maritime trade greatly influenced the development of cities pantheatic merchants in northern Europe joined together as a confederation this so-called Hanseatic League encompassed up to 300 Seaside and Inland towns most of the towns were located in an area that would today reach from the Netherlands to the Baltic states and from Sweden to Central Germany in the 16th century from this base the Hanseatic Traders created a sphere of influence that would span most of today's Europe the economic success of the league was primarily owing to their powerful Fleet of trade ships known as cogs the hanziatic league was sort of regulating the trade between cities in the Northwest and Northeast of Europe so you had things like copper and other metals from Sweden skins and furs from Russia wine and other nice things from the Rhineland so it sort of resulted in these very um affluent for the time cities popping up on on the coasts of Northern Europe Hong Kong's International reputation is one of the most important commercial centers is also down to its harbor Victoria Harbor was crucially important for Hong Kong's development apparently this is also why Hong Kong was claimed as a Crown Colony by Britain in 1843. [Music] Hong Kong Harbor is a natural Harbor lying in the South China Sea between the Hong Kong islands and the Kowloon peninsula British merchants quickly recognized the Harvest potential for their trade Fleet it offers everything you'd expect from a natural Harbor but Water Bay that is protected from strong waves and furnishes safe Anchorage [Music] in the foreground is a beautiful natural Harbor where the large liners and Men of War look like toy ships in a child's bath and in the distance the mountains of China thanks to its strategic location in close proximity to the Chinese Mainland the harbor quickly evolved into a center for trade with East Asia Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong um was hugely important it was kind of the main port for sort of a lot of the colonies we could see kind of the British sort of trading through there Victoria Harbor soon emerged as one of Asia's Premier ports up until the 1970s many shipyards and trading companies settled here Hong Kong had become an important Outpost of the British Empire in Hong Kong the decisive impulse for the city's development came from the port to this day Hong Kong is one of the most important economic centers of the world this is significant no like the idea that um there's a stronghold there you know you control the port you control basically a door to what's coming in and going out so this isn't just about transport this is political this is social this is ideological the way in which Harbors were built in their day can clearly be seen in La Rochelle the port city in southern France during the Middle Ages the old Harbor of La Rochelle was transformed by Templars into the Atlantic Coast's biggest Port often Harbors also served as fortifications they offered protection for the towns behind them two ancient defense Towers secured the port entrance during the late Middle Ages a heavy iron chain was stretched between the towers to block entry for sailboats today the old Harbor of La Rochelle is a tourist attraction [Music] in the Industrial Age it was mainly workers and seafarers who put their stamp on Old Port Towns they developed into spots with a very particular child ports were the gateway to the world not just for Sailors but also for travelers you know interestingly for our cultures our society's ports weren't just about moving things for point a and point B they were about connection they were about difference they were about negotiation all of these things the whole notion of a port of course was was people from different communities from different countries connecting and speaking this was sort of very very important usually the only the fort was a Region's largest employer people settled close by and the seaport typical pubs and drinking holes took hold so as sort of the rules of economics and supply and demand tend to dictate uh typically speaking where you have areas where men are coming back from being out at Sea with just other men and they come back to land they probably have various wants and needs that um have not been fulfilled and there are usually plenty of women looking for work and so uh I guess prostitution and red light districts were sort of a very unsurprising result of a Port City [Music] it was in harbors where famous Maritime explorers started their daring Expeditions which completely changed the world view of that time [Music] it was called the age of Discovery when we were sending all these ships around the world and starting to discover you know things like the Americas with with Columbus and even the first uh person to say all the way around the world that massively shaped how we saw the world that we saw it as a globe it is a globe flat earthers um and uh and really made us Define what the continents are and and see the bigger picture I mean it's fascinating Vasco de Gama was the first to prove that India could be reached by sea for the longest time it was believed that the Indian Ocean was an inland sea and that there was no connection between the Atlantic and Indian oceans but on the 8th of July 1497 tagama set sail from Lisbon he steers his Fleet eastwards through the Atlantic and circumnavigates the stormy Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa sailing along the east African Coastline he finally reaches the Indian Ocean and the port town of Calicut after 10 months at sea the sea route to India had been discovered the numerous Expeditions and Seabourn trade demanded new sea routes like the Suez Canal for example which is part of the maritime Silk Road and forms the boundary between Africa and Asia till the 19th century ships from Europe had to sail around the entire African continent to reach India in the Far East the dream of building a canal that connects the Mediterranean with the Red Sea and thereby dramatically shortening this journey has been around for ages long before the ancient Egyptians tried to conquer the desert for the construction of a Waterway failed the canal silted up nor was this ambitious project realized under Napoleon his surveyors after making some miscalculations deemed the project unfeasible handy thing about the Suez Canal say compared to something like the Panama Canal is that um the Red Sea and the Mediterranean are at almost identical level and so that means that you could just sort of dig a channel between the two and you wouldn't have to worry about you know a strong current going from one to the other so it didn't require locks or anything else the elaborate construction work didn't get underway until 1859 French engineer Ferdinand de lisep took up the initiative to build the canal it was the biggest construction project of its time in the middle of the desert and Far From Any kind of infrastructure thank you [Music] the construction of the Suez Canal it was an absolutely huge undertaking um early on actually they were using a lot of forced labor they had a problem at delivering water to all of the workers um they had something like 1 500 camels trying to do that um you know and they did try and improve the situation it wasn't great but thousands are thought to have died and there was in particular a number of Cholera outbreaks that were causing some of those deaths um yeah not it was not a great undertaking after 10 years of construction the canal was opened in 1869. [Music] sad circumstances Ferdinand de la Safford achieved a merciful feat in the baron desert an invaluable shipping shortcut amounting to 7 000 kilometers between east and west to this day the Suez Canal is considered the world's most important water corridor thanks to this shortcut the number of ships traveling the Seas kept climbing up until the mid-19th century they were carried over the oceans by sale an invention then led to a dramatic change in ships themselves [Music] with the invention of steam-powered ships that massively opens the world to to more chips and navigation um because you know think back to the the sail ships and you're heavily dependent on the Wind its direction as to whether you can actually go and so that eliminated that factor you were able to go anywhere you wanted um whenever you wanted it really just opened the floodgates the advantage was that steam engines delivered constant power for the journey this made it possible to calculate reliable shipping times [Music] steamboats revolutionized the World Market because now the time constraint of transporting goods was less of an issue which meant that we got to experience products that would never have reached Us in the time that it takes to cross the Seas so steam engines were obviously a big step forward in terms of Energy Efficiency because they were ran off coal which is a very energy dense fuel source as opposed to something like wood but the trouble with with steam engines is that they take up a lot of space and even more so the coal that they require to run off that takes up even more space and and they would often take together that would take up almost a third of a ship's cargo hold since steamships also served as immigrant ships this lack of space didn't just affect Goods up to the late 19th century was primarily Europeans who left their homes in search of a new life in America conditions aboard the ships were still very cramped in the beginning but the steamships heralded a new era here too they enabled passengers to cross the Atlantic in just 20 days or so this may transport cheaper and more affordable for wider sections of the population [Music] at the beginning of the 19th century large passenger ships were still used primarily as a means of transportation but since it wasn't possible to book a passage for the winter months they accrued losses for The Shipping Lines Albert Balin a hamburg-based ship owner came up with a groundbreaking idea of using the ships for pleasure cruises in warmer climes in 1891 he dispatched the Augusta Victoria to the Mediterranean with 241 passengers this was the beginning of cruise trips up to the mid-1930s luxury cruises became increasingly popular larger and faster ships were built to accommodate more and more passengers friendships also grew in size and the huge increase in Goods necessitated more dog workers at the ports to load and unload these Goods these so-called stevedores tried to distribute the ship's cargo as quickly as possible however the cargo had spiled during the journey there were some wonderful advancements that came out of necessary so you know people realize they can transport oceans they can transport relatively quickly but of course when it comes to fresh fruits and vegetables quick is is never really quick enough you know they only last a few days so that's until we see the refrigeration of compartments at the time you need to remember that this would have been heralded as a huge victory in terms of sort of human and Commercial progress with the invention of refrigerated vessels now even perishable Goods such as bananas or meat could be sported the luxury goods at the time finally became available to everyone [Music] but there's one invention that would revolutionize the port and the entire global economy along with it prior to this invention goods were still unloaded piece by piece a time-consuming undertaking they'd unload Goods almost individually and that has a problem depending on on weather conditions right uh you know if if it's raining snowing windy then you could damage the items so they'd actually kind of had to Halt everything at the port and they wouldn't be able to do anything you know they would be sitting around waiting for the sun to come out that's nuts loading and unloading was connected with long waiting times in general this is what he wanted to change in 1856 American Freight forwarder Malcolm McLean so there was this guy Malcolm McLean who started out as a truck driver but as he was you know going about his his shipping business he realized it was really inefficient to always you know drive up with the truck open it up empty all the goods out in one of the sort of individual pallets and then reload them into another truck he was like well why don't we just detach the Hulk thing stick that on the boat and then put that onto a new truck McLean evolved his mobile track trailer idea loading the entire track trailer along with the chassis onto a ship was inefficient there had to be a simpler method what if we had a standardized you know shape of box container and then you could just move it off a ship onto a truck and then load it to wherever it needed to go now this seems like genius now but at the time people were like well that doesn't make any sense why you do that but he like like most people that actually you know end up really sort of succeeding in business sticks to his idea he has that grit he kind of believes in what he's doing so he can't get funding he can't get a loan so what does he do he sells up all of his business whatever he's doing at the time and invests all the money by himself into developing a container he also had a Navy tanker converted into a container ship and sent it from Newark to Texas with 58 containers aboard the steel boxes attracted attention and coffee cats McLean had created a standardized box to this day it has the same exact dimensions all over the world standard container measures 20 feet approximately 6 meters the so-called 20-foot equivalent unit is abbreviated as Teo it is the same shape and size that we see today and it fits exactly on a truck so you're able to move it off and move it on and any kind of in some ways changes the face of shipping standardizing the boxes changed everything because it meant that loading and unloading became a much more simple process as a result everything got more efficient and less costly the downside of that was that labor intensity decreased which is often the case with technology before containers were introduced work at the Docks was very strenuous heavy goods were offloaded from ships and transported to warehouses using sack barrows technological advances along with the Advent of the container dramatically changed working conditions Goods no longer needing to be taken to a warehouse since the container itself functioned as a mobile storage shed [Music] it also was more secure as well because it meant you could put a completely sealed container and know that you know keep it locked the entire time and then you don't have to worry about the ship's crew getting into it drinking whatever it contains you know if it contains liquor so it's a really cool idea [Music] until the late 60s for the first container ships to reach the Forts and Nasher live a new era ports needed to adapt to new requirements that went hand in hand with containers modern Gantry cranes were installed on the keys the Old small-scale Port facilities were no longer suited for container transshipment what was needed now was large contained areas to stack the shipping containers and above all the role of Technology took on ever increasing importance all the operating procedures and all the container movements are monitored by an EDP sensor from its shipping companies can always get the latest information and an entirely new type of ship was developed the so-called container ships not only had a different shape they also had larger loading hatches than the previous bulk freighters in the 60s ships pulled out of port with 500 containers in the meantime their capacity has grown rapidly especially over the past 15 years their loading capacity has skyrocketed to the extent that a new biggest ship is launched somewhere in the world every year today these floating heavyweights are more than 60 meters wide and 400 meters long and there's no end in sight to this development so with the introduction of shipping containers what you're seeing is is the development of an economy of scale with um with the poor industry and with the shipping industry the more stuff you're able to send are in Mass the cheaper everything gets you know the labor goes down the the cost per item goes down it just makes everything more efficient [Music] these ever bigger ships have become a real challenge for ports the greater their draft and width the more difficult it becomes to maneuver these super ships controlling ship traffic is a complex job without The Navigators in the vessel Traffic Service Center ports will be paralyzed great ship widths pose a challenge but the real issue is often the ship's draft many ports aren't deep enough to accommodate very large vessels various restrictions apply for unusually large vessels a traffic separation scheme is in place to avoid the risk of collision and we coordinate vessel traffic to ensure that approaching vessels can do so efficiently safely and smoothly the oocl France with its 366 meters in length is among the very large container ships navigating a vessel this size is a real challenge for maritime Pilots anything 340 meters or longer or 46 meters wide requires two pilots one person alone can't keep an eye on everything from this ship for example there are 120 meters in front of me but I also have 240 meters behind me if I pass a small vessel I have to go outside look down and see if I can pass safely while I'm doing that I can't properly focus on my piloting duties because I'm located at the ship's side when actually I should be in the middle in order to Pilot the ship a mega vessel can only be guided into an inland Port safely and smoothly with the help of local tag captains who know the water's favorites so despite all the advances made the responsibility of Pilots has actually grown the expanding tonnage of vessels has changed our profession and increased our scope of responsibility Pilots used to just direct the course of one small vessel these Mega vessels weather container ships or passenger ships really strain the dimensions of many ports keeping a comprehensive overview of everything is absolutely crucial when it comes to passenger ships too the shipping companies are always vying to outdo one another with the biggest fastest or most luxurious ship the cruise ship boom has been going on since the 70s during this time not only have the ships become bigger everything about them has changed cruise ships look more and more like small towns in addition to room and board they offer a wide range of leisure activities sea cruises are a new branch of the tourist industry leading to bigger and bigger ocean liners these can be around 360 meters in length and carry almost 7 000 passengers this incredible growth entails consequences cities are completely overwhelmed with the surge of tourists more than 600 cruise ships with 1.5 million tourists on board more in Venice every year thus far the giant passenger ships have been able to pull right up to the dock and give their guests a magnificent view of the sights but environmentalists and those trying to preserve local cultures and traditions fear for the delicate ecological balance in the lagoon in the meantime the city has reacted since 2019 cruise ships have been banned from the Historical Center of Venice it's the same with container ships they too have become so big that many Harpers can no longer accommodate them cruise ship operators from all over are advocating Waterway development programs but they're facing resistance from nature conservation organizations that fear serious consequences for the ecosystem often enough however commercial interests are able to override environmental concerns many things need to be taken into consideration before dredging shipping channels to enable accommodation of larger vessels to prevent the current and the water level from changing for example the excavated soil must be deposited at another spot the river is also being widened works like this in the end add up to several million euros Fairway adjustment is fairly common the Panama Canal being the most prominent example the Panama Canal too had reached its capacity by the late 20th century it was neither wide nor deep enough for the Colossal new ships the canal was built at the end of the 19th century and inaugurated in 1914. at

this time no one could have envisioned today's mega-sized cruise ships and super tankers the 82 kilometer long Panama Canal is one of the world's most important waterways it links the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans this direct route lets ships bypass the treacherous Cape Horn of The Straits of magalan at the southern tip of South America the Panama Canal was really big for World Trade I mean so this is allowing you to easily access between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans so this was great for trade it was also great for Panama itself because they could charge people to go through and they made a lot of money that way before the extension Panama collected a billion dollars per year from ships that Transit the canal this makes the canal Panama's most important source of income and also the reason why it had to adapt to the new ships so some 100 years after the big opening this canal too needed to be expanded and have new locks installed to be to be able to keep up with the growing volume of ships since 2016 ships for the freight container volume of up to 14 000 containers can now be accommodated you can actually see that the the Advent of these large shipping containers and then these the larger ships that carry tons of these shipping containers has really affected the ports as well because you can imagine that the old-timey ports they're so small that these big shits would not even fit so it's it's driven the expansion of the ports themselves to be able to to have that capacity to enable those ships to come in to be able to deal with the amount of shipping containers that we're talking about being transferred between between cities I mean it's it's it's grown explosively almost [Music] the Arabs lead the way they are investing billions into the expansion of their forts the best example can be seen in Dubai taking his cue from the Palm Islands the port of Dubai Port of vieber Ali was also built in the ocean the yebble alley is in the top 10 of international ports Dubai is planning to surpass the ports of Shanghai and Singapore by 2030 and then Advanced the world's largest port we have a master plan to 2030 that we can grow up to 70 million teu capacity so yes we have the land Reserve we have the sea to reserved and it's just a matter of whenever we see the need is there as soon as we see that business is growing the demand is there we build ahead of the demand just to make sure that we are making sure that the cargo is Flowing smoothly and also our partners Shipping Lines and the Traders and businessmen are enjoying the growth and they can grow with us as well Terminal 2 was inaugurated in 2007. a short time later construction began for terminal 3 which opened in 2014. Terminal 4 opens soon thereby bringing container turnover capacity to 22.4 million annually [Music] ship owners have enormous power because without trade to a harbor a city loses revenue and so ship owners would have the upper hand in deciding where they wanted to trade and if a port didn't allow them to trade there they would just move on to somewhere else so it was extremely important that Harbors expanded to accommodate all ship owners no other City Shanghai exemplifies the development of port cities an economic Hub today Shanghai used to be a fishing Village thanks to its outstanding location near the Yangtze Delta Shanghai quickly grew into a vibrant Ford City cotton silk porcelain and tea were shipped around the world from here this is where the city's pulse could be felt at a port right in the Town Center in the 30s ships docked right at the band shanghai's legendary Riverfront Esplanade with its banks and magnificent hotels the evolution of Shanghai is typical for many large port cities as the pawns expand they Retreat far from the city centers these days ships can no longer more along shanghai's Waterside Promenade have to kind of imagine the difference between sort of that bustling poor with people shouting and workmen and and you know all of that kind of energy to now where you kind of just see things being moved around automatically you you actually could look around for for you know swallows of areas and not see that many people at all today Shanghai has the world's biggest port about 40 million containers have moved from land to ship and vice versa every year ships are loaded and discharged here and altogether 10 different terminals the most significant part of the port facility is its deep water Port yangshan 90 miles to the South up to 50 ships can birth at the same time along its 11 kilometer long warfage opened in 2017. this terminal is the world's first fully automated facility driverless vehicles and robots have almost completely taken over the work of people at most ports today there are only few if any people who still operate the Gantry cranes that move the steel boxes about 40 containers need to be shifted per hour crane operators definitely notice the increase in vessel size as in Amberg especially with these ship types that we have in front of us you get the feeling there's no end to the work they hold so many containers and it takes forever to unload and reload them Gantry crane operators work on a piece rate basis but will this be enough to keep up with the heavy volume transshipment of the containers is fully automated even now I'm convinced the machines won't be replacing us as drivers anytime soon in many situations we're faster and take better action than machines the machines we have work in a very linear boxy way we drive faster and more determinantly so I don't agree that our jobs as drivers are at stake anytime soon however there are already remote controlled Gantry cranes like here in Rotterdam in beings can't be seen on the terminal grounds anywhere the so-called control room is located in the nearby Office Building this is where seven people working in shifts monitor all the harbor operations the Gantry crane operators are in the Next Room especially for them automation was a cultural shift up until a few years ago they worked high above the container shift in the crane cabin now they unload the containers virtually in front of a monitor I do miss being in the crime because of the movement once you get used to it I liked it even with a storm a very high windscreen I moved a lot and yeah it was great and you don't have that here but this is it's different it's the same but it's different so uh yeah I like this because of the challenge the Gantry grain operators can no longer peer down through a glass floor to see the containers they have to rely on monitors and the various camera perspectives that took the most time getting used to the judge in the distance so you're much more careful than I was on the other side not that I wasn't careful there but um yeah it took a bit of time getting used to and and now now I have no problem but it's uh you have to again I say you rely on your meters your height meters and all the safety features which are built into the crane they helped me do my job safely the highly automated terminal implies about 500 people but this number is decreasing and there's no end in sight of the automation process today the immediate colleagues of the crane operators are machines so-called automated guided vehicles or agvs have revolutionized the ports as if by Magic they drive around the port transporting containers from the crane to the block warehouses amen vishman helped develop the agv system with a team of specialists [Music] various sensor systems come into play and enable the agv to maneuver fully automatically on the Harbor grounds we installed two large transponder antennae in the front and back communicate with transponders that have been installed in the agv driving surface so when the antennae bearing vehicle moves across a transponder the transponder transmits its info which transponder am I where am I located exactly to the antenna it's the information the antenna in turn transmits the data to a navigation computer that's located in this control cabinet some 20 000 transponders have been installed grid dike into the surface the agv needs to know the past to take but also how to evade other transporters foreign [Music] the vehicles don't communicate with one another but rather via a higher level system that specifies the route for each of the vehicles this route should be optimally chosen so the containers get from the Gantry crane to the warehouse Crane and vice versa by the shortest route but the greatest achievement is the vehicle battery to recharge they drive autonomously to the changing station where the battery is replaced within minutes these vehicles thus play a big role in reducing harmful emissions at the port a now Specialists have either managed to program the agvs to get their batteries recharged when green electricity is particularly plentiful in the power grid with the help of agvs the amount of carbon dioxide in Hamburg is to be reduced by 10 thousands of tonnes the goal is to turn the port into a transshipment point with zero emissions everything [Music] meanwhile work on the next Innovation is already underway with the help of digitalization and AI autonomous ships will be navigating the harbor and make for even smoother operations Vincent Wagner is heavily involved in this project together with the port operator he outfitted a patrol boat with numerous measuring devices this is actually our test Festival it's called The Floating lab and the port of Rotterdam has uh well has given us the opportunity to make use of this vessel to to test our software the eight cameras that are installed in the boat provide a 360 degree view radar and GPS transmit its position start with the floating lab will harvest all kinds of data [Music] the collected data will be used to program the algorithms efficiently a process that will be subject to ongoing optimization as the virtual Captain is trained various scenarios are being tested the virtual vessel will have to navigate in heavy swells storms or snow and also know how to evade other objects [Music] foreign advantages so one of them of course is that the digital Captain never gets tired so Captain AI is always there to to either to train or to do the work and never gets drunk and therefore it's also more more scalable so you can use the technology on all the ships based on one algorithm and that's that's something human cannot do we cannot transfer our knowledge in in one-on-one right you need to train as a human being like 20 years to become a senior Captain uh but our our digital Captain will just learn from all the all the other boats and all the data that comes in and there's one big super brain getting smarter every day autonomous ships are they the future for our ports what role will humans still play will the ports be able to dispense with them at one point [Music] I'm not sure if if ports are going to be without completely any human interventions I think we've seen with other industries that that when you increase the level of autonomy it just changes the jobs that humans do so there will always be some level of human oversight in in some capacity now that may be that they're not even sat at the Port anymore and they're at some sort of remote location and watching on cameras or or whatever but I I think there will still have to be a human element involved in some sense there's no way that the robots are going to be doing absolutely everything so what does the future look like for the harbor how far can these processes be optimized there are still some disruptive factors that could cancel the ports cost concept vary abruptly a ship repair that becomes necessary for example often this would force a ship owner to wait a long time for spare parts that need to be brought in from another part of the world in Rotterdam there's a place where startup businesses and students deal with exactly this problem the RDM grounds the former Shipyard has evolved into an innovation cluster for the port Vincent Wagner runs his Labs here too he believes he's found a solution for the problem namely by printing the necessary spare parts with a 3D printer [Music] a robot welding arm will be programmed with the corresponding Dimensions layer for layer high-grade Metals will then be applied [Music] hi [Music] the main benefits of printing Parts over other Technologies like like forging or costumes that you can print parts the amount you need when you need them and where you need them so that is you can print locally you don't have to wait on your shipment from China or India you just print it where you need it here in Rotterdam for instance you don't need to have any warehousing anymore because you will only need to print what you are actually going to use so there are many advantages for 3D printing with this technology Vincent Wagner and his team managed to print the world's first licensed ships propeller a metal piece made of aluminum nickel and copper with a diameter of one meter and a weight of 400 kilograms [Music] we've seen that there's a big demand for for making Parts on the mount if we can fulfill that role then the Port Royal Dam has a new role as as a provider of those of those parts and we foresee also a future where you have helps around the world like Singapore Houston Rotterdam uh you know you can get their Your Parts over there at these hubs [Music] port trying to take advantage of 3D printing as an additional service to offer so with the Advent of the printing almost everywhere you can see that that's obviously going to go to Ports and harbors as well so I you know I see that that's really going to expand in the future it was undergone a transformation that has no equal at one time it was a place of Yearning and the employer for an entire region terminals today everything is about efficiency time and costs if you take a look at how much of the work there is now automated and how quickly that's happened you see that that's probably a sign of things to come in other Industries we are one of our greatest inventions to the ambition of a truck driver you can sense and experience Innovations more intensively at a port than anywhere else they are what made globalization and turbo capitalism possible in the first place nowadays I can find some really cheap Gadget that I can get from China have it in a few weeks time and I've only spent a couple of pounds on it you know and and that's that's absolutely nuts and the more people are going to be doing stuff like that it's going to increase the demand the bigger ships for for more ships traveling as we just get more and more consumerized economies of scale this also applies to passenger shipping with unforeseen consequences for the environment looking at the fort is like a glimpse into the future a future that will change our lives dramatically foreign [Music] [Music] foreign

2023-09-03 16:18

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