Friday, April 10, 2015

Kalmar invests $3.23M in port automation program





Kalmar will invest $3.23 million in a new port automation testing and development platform at its Technology and Compete Centre in Tampere, Finland, according to a statement from parent company Cargotec.

The platform will be used primarily for testing customer projects and new product releases. The investment includes all modules necessary to run an automated container yard operation, including the total automation system, a new automatic stacking crane and the R&D work required for the deployment.

In 2011-2013, Cargotec said it invested approximately $37.6 million in the construction of the Technology and Competence Centre in Tampere. The Kalmar center represents the industry's largest automation test field, high tech facilities and laboratories for prototyping, simulation, testing, monitoring and optimization.

"In the past, a lot of time was used for testing and optimizing at the customer site after the equipment had been delivered. In an automation project this

can have a significant impact on the implementation time and cost," said Olli Isotalo, president of Kalmar.

With the latest investment, Kalmar has a complete end-to-end automation system in Tampere, including automated and manual straddle, and shuttle carries for horizontal transportation, an automatic stacking crane system for yard operations and automated truck handling for landside operations — all integrated with Kalmar terminal logistic system and Navis N4 terminal operating systems. In addition, the virtual environment in the Technology and Competence Centre will be used for the regression testing of new software releases.

"With this unique set-up, we can start the testing well in advance before the equipment delivery and keep the on-site testing at a minimum," said Isotalo. "This will result in faster implementation times and our customers can expect the shortest possible time to value in port automation projects."

Kalmar says its new automation testing platform will be operational at the center in early 2016.


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