Orally presented conference paper in 14th Trans Middle East Conference (Tehran, Jan.2017)

1. The Emergence of Smart Ports and
Their Impactful Implications
By :
Dr. Hamid Reza Abaie,
General Director of ICT Department, PMO
abaie@pmo.ir
Mehdi Rastegary ( E-MBA)
Head of R&D, Sina Ports and Marine Services
rand-bnd@spmco.co
Tehran, 24th & 25th January 2017

2. ٌ‫ِري‬‫ب‬َ‫خ‬ َ‫ون‬ُ‫ل‬َ‫م‬ْ‫ع‬َ‫ت‬ ‫ا‬َ‫م‬ِ‫ب‬ ُ‫ه‬‫اَّلل‬َ‫و‬ ٍ‫ات‬َ‫ج‬َ‫َر‬‫د‬ َْ‫ْل‬ِ‫ع‬ْ‫ل‬‫ا‬ ‫ا‬‫و‬ُ‫ت‬‫و‬ُ‫آ‬ َ‫ين‬ِ ‫ه‬‫اَّل‬َ‫و‬ ْ ُ‫نُك‬ِ‫م‬ ‫ا‬‫و‬ُ‫ن‬َ‫م‬‫آ‬ َ‫ين‬ِ ‫ه‬‫اَّل‬ ُ‫ه‬‫اَّلل‬ ِ‫ع‬َ‫ف‬ْ‫ر‬َ‫ي‬(‫اجملادهل‬-11)
Allah will exalt those who believe among you, and those who have knowledge, to high
ranks. Allah is Informed of what ye do.

3. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Ports and terminals are encountering myriads
of new challenges
• Ports and terminals are seen as the
underpinnings of maritime trade which
account for 90 percent of international trade in
global economy.
• Currently the ports sector is encountered with
many challenges, including:
 Ship size growth and cascading effects
 Shipping market concentration and pressures from
alliances
 Fierce regional competition between ports
 The rising need for capacity developments
 The upheaving need for improving the port
productivity
 The transformations in supply and demand chains (
e,g. collaborative consumption, mass-customized
production, economic protectionism, etc.)
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 3Tehran – 24th January 2016

4. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Abaie,H.R., and Rastegary,M.(2016)
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 4Tehran – 24th January 2016

5. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Contextual Implications in ports
It is essential to comprehend that:
• Ports are seen as asset-rich complexes and
their development is extremely capital-
intensive and time-consuming..
• Any port development project is seen as an
irreversible, sunk-cost investment.
• The terminals industry is a semi-manufacture
industry that relies on colossal fleets of
equipment, facilities, and resources.
• Nearly all ports perform by utilization of
maximally 60-70% of their resources.
• They are all affected deeply by their
customers, competitors, upstream and
downstream stakeholders, and the PESTEL
conditions.
• They are encountered by new cost-attracting
concerns like sustainability, security, etc.
The ports and terminals are in need of Transformative change.
As we will discuss Information Technology is one of the main Change agents.
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 5Tehran – 24th January 2016

6. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
The Continuum of Information Revolution in the beginning
of the third Millenium
• After revolutionizing the economy in the second half
of 20th Century, the Information Technology is
functioning as the key to the upgrade of human life and
economy to the next, higher levels.
• It is a fact that today, we have access to several
powerful, available, and affordable IT-based solutions
in business and economy.
• This has been gained due to several factors, including:
Developments in Data Processing, storage, and
sharing technologies.
Development of shared and distributed
infrastructure
Networks and networking Effects
By relying on the leverages of such IT-based solutions,
humanity will change more in the next 20 years than in the previous 300 years.
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 6Tehran – 24th January 2016

7. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Former ICT impact on Ports and Terminals
• ICT has had very great impacts on
enhancements of ports and terminals.
• Among the IT-based solutions and systems
that have been used and/or developed in the
sector, we can point to:
Internet and World Wide Web
E-commerce ( and introduction of EDI)
 Port Community Systems
Terminal Operations Systems
Traffic Control Systems
Security & Surveillance systems
Industrial Automation Systems
Simulation Software and Systems
 Various Transaction Processing Systems
Yet, much greater waves of change are coming to transform the face of the industry.
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 7Tehran – 24th January 2016

8. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Internet of Things
• IoT is seen as the infrastructure of the information
society
• In 2020, there will be over 50-billion connected devices
on earth (i.e. 6.6 devices per each living man).
• The emergence of IoT will embed and enhance
intelligence in every aspect of human life.
• It is estimated that IoT will generate a value equal to
4.6 trillion dollars for the public sector and 14.4 trillion
dollars for the private sector in this decade(Bradley,
Reberger, Dixit, & Gupta, 2013).
• Ports are among the most capable sectors for
engendering such value-added as they usually function
simultaneously as international trade gateways/hubs,
logistic platforms, and industrial clusters.
• IoT can also facilitate the developments of:
 Big Data
 Industrial Internet
 Semantic Web
 Machine Learning
 Port Automation
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 8Tehran – 24th January 2016

9. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Internet of Things
• IoT in ports is currently most underpinned on use of :
 Various sensors
 RFID
 Wireless Sensor Networks
Network Communication Technology (includig
short-range communication and WAN
communications)
 M2M
 Terminal equipment
 Handheld mobile terminal
• Hence, it seems that many other technologies will be
increasingly used in term of IoT in ports, including:
The wearables
The smart phones
And more and more smart equipment, vehicles and
appliances
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 9Tehran – 24th January 2016

10. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Big Data
• It is estimated that currently, 2-quintillion bytes of
data is generated per day.
• By this trend, 90% of the data in the world today
has been generated in the past three years.
• This tremendous growth of data has developed
the ‘Big Data’ as large pools of data that can be
captured, communicated, aggregated, stored, and
analyzed.
• Most part of Big Data is comprised of an
incalculable amount of transactional data being
produced by companies, financial institutions, and
online intermediaries.
• This includes trillions of bytes of information
about buyers, suppliers, and operations of critical
interest to businesses and financial analysts.
• In the coming years, the Big Data will be among
the core factors of value creation in the global
economy.
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 10Tehran – 24th January 2016

11. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Big Data
The ports can use Big Data to create value by:
• Making information more transparent and
usable at much higher frequency.
• Boosting their productivity by collecting
more accurate and detailed performance
information through creating and storing
more operational , technical maintenance,
and transactional data and their analysis for
making better management decisions and/or
forecasting
• better segmentation of customers and
providing more precisely tailored services.
• substantial improvement of decision-making
by sophisticated analytics
• Innovations and development of the next
generation of services.
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 11Tehran – 24th January 2016

12. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Port Automation
• Generally speaking, process automation has
been a long-practiced trend in the terminals
industry.
• Many processes have been automated in the
past decades including vessel planning, yard
planning. container checks, etc.
• In a more specific sense, automation of
container handling is emerging to enhance the
port productivity levels in response to recent
ship size developments.
• Currently around 30 container terminals are
automated by unmanning their yard handling
equipment or terminal transport vehicles
around the world.
• The automation cuts labor costs, and provides a
more predictable, consistent and stable
container handling performance.
• More focus is forming on intelligent algorithms
that can predict equipment behavior that
enables prevention of break downs and down
time.
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 12Tehran – 24th January 2016

13. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Intelligent Port
• The resultant of increasing reliance of ports
on informatics, digitization, instrumentation
and automation of port has led to the rise of
intelligence in them.
• The intelligence can build the foundation to
more efficient dynamic info-centric
continuous improvement, in comparison to
the conventional PDCA cycle.
• This is how the high leaps of improvement
can be performed by raising the intelligence
of ports.
• The intelligence of the port can be used
wisely to transform it into a ‘Smart Port’.
Plan
Do
Check
Act
Old,
Static
Data
Collect
Analyze
PredictOptimize
Automate
Dynamic,
Real-time
Information
Vitsounis,T. (2014)
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 13Tehran – 24th January 2016

14. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Smart Port
• The Smart Port concept is the result of a
new systematic , and all-encompassing view
of port missions and functions.
• The intelligence factor is certainly used as a
great leverage to realize the needed
interactions and improvements.
• But it is essential to understand that Smart
Port is the new way of thinking and
conception, rather than a collection of costly
new technologies for vanity shows in a port.
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 14Tehran – 24th January 2016

15. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 15Tehran – 24th January 2016
Smart Port
• The Smart Port concerns:
Providing an intelligent information infrastructure in the port and
reaping knowledge and wisdom from it
Boosting innovation to win the most possible with the least
available resources
Developing agility in port in response to the changeful business
environment
Optimal and maximal utilization of the existing capacities of the
port.
Optimal and futuristic design and development of the port
capacity
Due organization of port logistics processes to streamline and
attract the global trade flows to the port.
Strengthening the sharing and collaboration of the port with her
interested parties in order to increase the impact of the port in the
supply chains.
Integration of different Management areas to generate more value-
added
Acting responsibly and intelligently towards the betterment of the
environmental aspects and impacts of the port.
The Smart Port development relies heavily
on the intelligent Information Infrastructure and its advantages.

16. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Smart
Port
Concept
Energy
Consumption
Operations
Environment
MED Maritime Integrated Project (2014)

17. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 17Tehran – 24th January 2016
Smart Port Concept
• The Smart Port incorporates:
Intelligent, green and integrated transport
Efficiency and competitiveness (through
technologies, automation and application of
tools as VSM)
Energy efficiency (including renewable
resources).
Driving force for the socio-economic
development of their city or region.
Being resource-efficient, respectful with the
environment, secure and seamless for the
benefit of citizens, the economy and society.

18. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Environment
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 18Tehran – 24th January 2016
1.Berth Productivity
2.Infrastructure Productivity
3.Capacity for receiving Large vessels
4.Size and use of Max. Capacity
5.Technologic level
8. Lines calling at port
6.Level of Automation
7. Level of Intermodality
9. Quality, Safety and Security
1.Environmental
Management System
2. Waste Management
3. Water Management
4.Emission to Air
5. Noise Pollution
6.Leaks and Spills of
Polluting Substances at Sea
1.Total Consumption of Energy
2.Energy Consumption
by containers
3. Energy Consumption
by Internal Fleet
4. Energy Consumption by Offices
5. Energy Consumption by
Lighting in Terminal Area
8. Energy Management
7. Use of Renewables
6. Energy Consumption by Terminal
Equipment for handling containers
Energy
Consumption
Operations
0
Smart Port Concept Areas and Criteria. MED Maritime Integrated Project (2014)

19. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Conclusions
• In the recent years, the ports are
experiencing extreme pressures and
tensions to enhance their service levels.
• According to prevailing market trends,
the ports and terminals are most in need
of transformative change.
• The Information Technology can act as
one of the most effective change agent
in this regard.
• We discussed that in tandem with former
IT systems and technologies, disruptive
trends like IoT, Big Data, and Port
Automation will be revolutionizing the
industry in terms of few years.
• The capabilities of the growing
intelligence in ports are mostly oriented
to be used in development of ‘Smart
Ports’.
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 19Tehran – 24th January 2016

20. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Conclusions
• Smart Port is a concept that concerns integration of
different management areas to engender the maximum
possible value-added from the minimum amount of
resources.
• The concept heavily relies on the backbone of modern
information infrastructures that facilitates generating
knowledge and wisdom, as well as prompt action in port-
related works.
• Currently the smart port concept is focused on operations,
environment, and energy consumption as its main area.
• The Smart Port concept is a new way of thinking that
recognizes the necessity and advantages of intellectual
development of ports ( with special focus on their IT-
based structural capitals).
• By some domestication, it can be effectively oriented to
function in terms of development of Islamic Republic of
Iran in the context of National Resistive Economy.
• PMO’s ICT Department and her affiliate researchers are
pursuing the preparation of models and plans of ‘Iranian
Smart Ports’.
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 20Tehran – 24th January 2016

21. PMO
The Emergence of Smart Ports and Their Impactful Implications
Many thanks for your attention.
By : Dr. H.R. Abaie & M. Rastegary p.: 21Tehran – 24th January 2016