KPT gets IAPH IT
Award 2005
About IAPH
International
Association of Ports and Harbors (IAPH) was founded in 1955 to elaborate
improvements at different Ports and harbors. A journal was introduced in 1956 initially
consisting of mainly information, source material and announcements concerning
major ports. With time, IAPH undertook
important role of addressing, monitoring and analyzing the current topics of
interest and concern to the global port industry. Till today IAPH has
identified current issues, shared experiences, best practices and offered
solutions to new challenges faced by the port industry. IAPH functions through
committees of professionals of different interests of different activities. Over
the years as volume of cargo increased dramatically due to containerization,
the need arose to provide efficient and user friendly port services, handling
of services/documents and communication through electronic data processing
heading to the creation of the “Trade
Facilitation Committee”.
Commemorating its 50th
Anniversary, IAPH launched IT Award 2005 through the trade facilitation
committee as a reward to demonstrate their commitment to promoting the use of
IT in ports and maritime transportation and the award is to be presented to
outstanding projects in this arena with regards to projects/applications
implemented in last two years that resulted in greatest benefits to the port such
as reduced costs, increased revenue, improved safety, enhanced efficiency and
environmental protection. The entry was to be governed with guidelines of project
Summary, Results achieved, technology used, obstacles overcome and technology
base.
KPT’s Award Entry
Project Summary
Complicated
documentary procedures cause a significant loss of trade due to complex import
and export documentation, lengthy procedures, communication difficulties
between port users, KPT Act and its limitations. In order to assure the
availability of secure and highly efficient and productive facilities at
economical cost at par with other international ports, the KPT decided to
embark on full scale automation of all its activities. The ability to use
information quickly for developing new concepts of services and applications
that are more responsive and provide flexibility in dynamic and time critical
situations is now a business necessity. The technical solution was to fully
automate KPT in the shortest and most effective manner without hindering day to
day activities. This involved structured walkthroughs, data gathering,
interviews, and understanding of business procedure, defining suitable hardware
with minimum cost without compromising on security and operations readiness,
fall back options availability, disaster/recovery strategy, training and data
integrity with external organizations. The Karachi Port Trust’s computerization
project was launched considering information technology as of today is one of
the key factors in propelling growth in all sectors. The project consisting of
hardware infrastructure as well as application software was launched
aggressively through private concerns. The network comprised of over 500 nodes
on fiber optic and wireless WAN. The overall computerization project comprised
of various modules pertaining to all
facets of port activities to mention a few which include port operations, cargo
and container handling, warehousing, estate management, Payroll, Hospital
Management Systems, Human Resource (including Pension, Annual Confidential
reports, Leave Management), Automated Inventory Management etc. In order to
expedite computerization, a concurrent phase methodology was adopted. In one
phase the revenue oriented port operations and related activities were
undertaken through private concerns, in another phase predefined IT software
were procured and tailored as per needs and in third phase in-house development
of application software was also undertaken. The automation of vessel
operations, cargo and container handling, warehousing and estate management
commenced on
Results Achieved
The
results of automation in KPT have been phenomenal. It has greatly helped in
identifying areas of change, strategy for change, impact of proposed changes,
defined better solutions and even provided areas requiring institutional
strengthening. Reduction of man power has been substantial. As a direct
consequence of automation, over manned locations were identified and Golden
Hand Shake scheme was launched. From strength of over 12,000 employees, the
strength has reduced to about 5,500. This has resulted in reduction in human
resource cost such as overtime, medical expenses, payroll of about
Rupees 700 million annually. There has been a reduction in paper work. Due to
better analytical and statistical information, timely and effective decisions
have enabled revenues to increase by about 1 billion Rupees annually. Time
saving and operational readiness have improved tremendously. With the advent of computerization in KPT,
new ways of facilitations of trade emerged. Electronic data interchange did
away with the requirement of volumes of paper. E-PAS, e-ETA and e-Wharfage
portals which are part of electronic Port Access System were provided to
shipping agents for submitting IGM, ETA and generation of wharfage bills online.
KPT launched its website (http://www.kpt.gov.pk) in
2001 and information pertaining to ship movements, cargo details, notices and
other information pertaining to KPT is also available. It is probably the only
web site that provides a visual interface of the
KPT
holds an expensive prime estate effective management of which is necessary. KPT
computerized its estate data and further digitized its estate. A geographical
information system (GIS) is being developed. All information pertaining to each
location will be readily available. Prepaid cards have been introduced to allow
port users to make payments after banking hours. The facility of payments is
also provided through KPT’s telephone exchange. The caller after making the
right selections through the interactive voice response system can make his
wharfage bill payments. Inter-organizational data integration has been done
with Pakistan Customs systems and with the terminal operators.
Technology
Used
Selection
of technology with respect to software and hardware is a key component. It
affects the organizations ability to expand without glitches. KPT engaged
through open tender M/s Siemens Pakistan Engineering Co ltd, to lay the network
infrastructure and provide the then latest hardware. KPT opted for hardware
related to DELL make high end servers models 8450 and 6400. Epson dot matrix
printers, Xerox laser printers and Tally line printers for volume printing,
Intel data switches, Cisco routers, Cisco wireless bridges, Merlin Gerin UPS,
AMP structured cabling system were procured. The network has fiber optic as in
primary back bone while radio links automatically provide the secondary
backup.
For the application software, ORACLE
9i was used at backend and Developer 2000 was used at front end. In addition
Java platform was used to develop a web based visual interface depicting
current vessel status on the wharves. Considering the hacking and related
security issues, Internet and operational networks have been kept apart.
Internet has been provided through BRI to selected users only but through a
separate LAN setup with a specific perimeter. For other users a cyber café was
established. A PRI is being secured to further augment line and speed
availability in addition to setting up an ISP. A PIX firewall (525E) with fail
over option is also being procured separately. The server rooms are properly
secured by digital locks requiring RFID cards and pin codes.
Obstacles
Overcome
The
biggest obstacle or challenge was although that a batch mode computer setup
existed but computerization at this stage required a complete new beginning
from scratch. Since this was new beginning, the working ethics, mindset and
some procedures had to be changed and establishment of a proper computer center
with all necessary hardware was required. Two Training labs were established
and skilled personnel had to be hired for the in-house development and
tailoring of other application software in addition to day-to-day
activities.
Policies, procedures, practices and
organizational structure had to be put in place to provide reasonable assurance
that the organizations business objective will be achieved and undesired risk
event will be prevented. Access to
information prior computerization was possible at any level, is now controlled
by different access levels and authorization codes at the same time assuring
the users of reliability, accuracy, database integrity and retrieval of
information which would otherwise involve huge man hours. Managements top down
approach and extensive training were key components in avoiding or reducing expected
problems. Over 500 personnel including officers were initially trained and new
incumbents are now provided hands-on training. Another challenge was to ensure
continuous user confidence in the system during implementation as they had been
habitual of manual processing.
Technology
Base
Prior
implementation of the existing computerization project, KPT had a small
computer setup housing 06 PCs, a line printer and a very old ICL ME29 computer
with hard disk capacity of 180MB, RAM of 512Kb and two tape units. Total of 20
PCs in KPT were available and were mostly 386 or 486 types. The computer center
housed one manager, 3 systems analysts, 6 programmers, 2 computer operators, 6
data entry operators, 6 data coders and one data supervisor. Not one of these was
an IT graduate. The concept of internet was not known to the department. The
skill set of the staff was deficient and out dated. The officers were not fully
aware of IT tools available and advancements in IT. Most could not accept new
challenges due to age. The systems were initially designed in COBOL and later
converted gradually on Oracle platform on ORACLE 7. All activities were done in
batch mode. Applications were purely scripting based and concept of RDBMS was
not conceptualized. Data had to be captured on forms specially printed and sent
to computer department for data entry. Printout of data entered was obtained
and another team of data coders would audit the entries made against actual
data forms earlier received. When found free of errors the processing program
was executed and relevant files were updated and large volumes of printouts
were obtained. In spite of having the data on tape and hard disk, hard copies
of the printouts were kept by the computer department. This required the need
to have large storing places. The systems designed pertained to payroll,
personnel, provident fund, Advances, Berth operations, cash book, property
billing etc. The MIS concept did not
exist and each system was programmed to function independently. This often led to reports not synchronizing
to each other. Backup policies, redundancy and disaster recovery plans had to
be institutionalized which earlier existed in crude form.