Out-of-the-box thinking

Tommi Pettersson, vice president, automation at Kalmar, said: "CargoHack was a great success in many aspects. We received more than 100 applications and had to widen the event scope. We selected 16 teams and gave them challenges covering areas like visualisation of terminal operations, use of mobile technologies, safety, and improving efficiency of the wider value chain around cargo handling.”

The participants had access to the latest technology and equipment in the port industry, including a large automation test field with unmanned machines and drones, Kalmar's Virtual Lab, Application Program Interfaces (APIs), sensors and big data from terminal environment. In addition, experts from Kalmar and Tieto Corporation served as mentors for the teams during the entire event.

"Improving performance by utilising technology that is already available and safety turned out to be the most common themes in the final pitches. Many proposals looked for new ways to use drones, sensors, robots, smart glasses or other innovative tools and devices in improving terminal efficiency and safety or in creating new intelligent services for terminal operators. Some of the teams came up with new conceptual thinking to improve sharing of data and knowledge among the entire value chain of terminal operations. We even heard ideas on how to intelligently combine manual and automated operations," Pettersson continued.

Customer value and business model were key criteria in choosing the winner of CargoHack. The winning concept was presented by the team Pointscene. Their unique idea of using visualisation in a terminal environment can be implemented in multiple ways.

"Overall, the hackathon proved to be a great tool and method for bringing out and demonstrating new ideas and out-of-the-box thinking. We will move forward with some of the ideas and integrate them into our product and technology roadmaps," Pettersson concluded.