Space Daily
22 April 2008
BYLINE: Staff Writers
Navis has demonstrated its new Navis SPARCS Live View graphical user interface at Navis World 2008, the company's seventh biennial user conference held between April 20-23 in San Francisco. SPARCS Live View is a support application for existing Navis SPARCS and Navis SPARCS N4 terminal operating systems.
It provides an interactive, graphical user interface that enables control room operators the ability to see where all containers and assets are at any given moment. By delivering a 360-degree view of the entire yard operation in real time, SPARCS Live View helps operators increase throughput, boost utilization, and improve asset tracking.
"SPARCS Live View gives operators a complete picture of their terminal in motion," says Lou Chauvin, Vice President of Strategy and Solutions Management. "Knowing exactly where every container and every piece of equipment is allows operators to spot potential bottlenecks and fix operational problems before they occur. With Live View, operations can become proactive rather than reactive."
First Customer: Georgia Ports Authority
The Georgia Ports Authority, which operates the Ports of Savannah, Brunswick, Bainbridge and Columbus, will be the first customer to implement SPARCS Live View. The software is being deployed at the Garden City Terminal, Savannah's ultramodern dedicated container terminal.
Spread across 1,200 acres, it is North America's largest single-terminal container facility and is a vital link in the nation's supply chain.
Why Visibility is Important
Effective management requires a proactive stance. Seeing and orchestrating operations as they unfold is far more effective than reacting to problems as they occur. Today, operational problems are typically identified when a yard clerk or equipment operator radios in to the control room.
This reactive approach often proves to be too time-consuming. With SPARCS Live View, the control room operator views the terminal in motion and may re-route equipment to avoid costly bottlenecks and delays. The visibility pays in increased productivity, efficiency and profitability.
Hardware, Middleware Agnostic
SPARCS Live View is both hardware and middleware agnostic. Currently certified to work with Navis Edge Manager middleware, Live View can also connect to other middleware applications, using these applications as a conduit for receiving position updates. Live view is also engineered to interact with devices built by any GPS, RFID, RTLS or PDS vendor. Live View can receive both XY and Lat Long coordinates to render assets and objects on the dynamic Live View map.
