Final Say

Scanning 100 Percent by 2012

In the spring of 2007, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security mandated that by July 2012, 100 percent of all inbound cargo containers to the U.S. must be scanned.

Not only must ports find a solution that is effective in detecting radiation, they will also need to find one that doesn’t adversely affect port productivity. This challenge will be particularly acute at transshipment and intermodal centers where containers coming off of ships typically don’t leave the dock.

Scanners on Spreaders
Even before the mandate, Cargotec was working on a solution to meet those challenges — radiation scanning equipment mounted to a spreader. The benefits of such a system would be numerous:

•  The spreader makes contact with virtually all containers.
• The 30 to 40 seconds it takes a spreader to move a container is ample time to effectively scan for radiation.
• Scanning during transport allows the port to remain efficient.

Creating the Product
Cargotec Port Security’s President, Troy Thompson, says that although customers have been asking for this technology for years, it’s not as simple as creating it and putting it on the market.

It took five years, Thompson says, just to find the company that could deliver a radiation system capable of handling the harsh port environments — the beating, the banging, the dirt, and every kind of weather condition.

Cargotec eventually teamed up with Innovative American Technologies (IAT), a company that had also been studying radiation detection platforms, looking to put theirs in different port applications. It was a good match, and in the spring of 2008, the spreader-mounted radiation detection system received QATT (Qualified Anti-Terrorist Technology) designation from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Testing and More Testing
Cargotec spent a majority of 2008 participating in government tests to see if the radiation detection met their specs.

“It was kind of a three-phase process,” says Thompson. “If you pass the first phase, then you’re invited to the next phase.”

The U.S. Customs Border Protection (CBP) wanted tests conducted in working ports. The first phase took place during the spring of 2008 in Charleston, N.C., followed by a phase two demonstration in Tacoma, Wash.

“At both ports they [CBP] would take containers and put different sources in them, without telling us what they were or where they were,” says Thompson. “They also put in shielding and masked things to try to hide them.”

Immediately following the Tacoma demonstration in late summer 2008, phase three began — 10 weeks of formal evaluation at the Department of Energy Los Alamos Laboratory. This was actually the second test by the Department of Energy — the first was conducted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory prior to the working port demonstrations.

Thompson says, throughout the process, they weren’t allowed to update or change the system. “They wanted to consistently see the same results in all three locations. The good news is that we learned a little bit from each location. On the next go-around we’ll have an updated version with some software that will be changed.”

The Right Solution
Thompson is excited, not only about the future spreader, but also about future applications. “We looked at this platform because we wanted to be able to put it on a spreader — it’s the first place that the port authorities are saying it needs to be on.”
“But we build all kinds of container handling equipment,” Thompson adds, “and for that reason we wanted something modular. We can put it on a spreader, or we can put it on a straddle carrier. We’ve even talked to the Coast Guard about mounting this system on a boat or private watercraft.”

Will you see the spreader for sale soon? Too early to tell. Thompson says now he hopes for pilot projects in 2009.