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Transportation Review | Friday, November 24, 2023
Source: Aligning facility design with the evolving landscape and employing strategies such as remote sorting facilities can bolster operational efficiency and overall resilience.
FREMONT, CA: Intermodal rail terminals play a pivotal role in the supply chain, seamlessly guiding freight, facilitating storage, and ensuring efficient delivery to final destinations. As the global logistics network grapples with pandemic-induced disruptions, optimizing these crucial facilities is a strategic imperative. Doing so not only sustains the flow of goods but also enhances operational resilience, curbing future slowdowns and interruptions.
In the face of limited expansion opportunities, particularly within urban and coastal locales, railroads and ports are compelled to extract every conceivable growth percentage from their existing footprints. The prevailing approach revolves around inventory stacking. Freight is typically housed in containers akin to colossal boxes, which can be easily stacked. However, this seemingly straightforward solution necessitates heightened management and planning. Yards must adeptly retrieve specific containers from stacks, some towering five high and five deep. This shift demands a fresh mindset and an innovative operational approach.
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Intermodal yards are embracing advanced crane styles capable of extending over containers and selectively accessing desired loads within a stack. Although side-handling equipment, essentially large forklifts, may appear cost-effective on a per-unit basis, they lack the requisite selectivity and mandate the movement of containers above and in front of the targeted one. By contrast, overhead cranes can target the required container with minimal disturbance.
This enhanced efficiency necessitates a facility redesign in tandem with supportive equipment. Longer rows of stacked containers may replace truck parking. Craneways are integrated to accommodate larger cranes and their heavier loads. This approach has seen successful deployment in international intermodal yards and ports.
To translate this approach into tangible results, a comprehensive team is imperative. Experts well-versed in civil design requisites and technological facets, including intelligence, automation, and the Internet of Things (IoT), can engineer terminals seamlessly integrating these systems. This harmonious convergence between operations and design is pivotal for the evolution of these facilities in the years ahead.
Such industry advancements carry profound implications for site development and design. Choosing cranes, configuration, and deployment strategies become critical considerations, dictating efficiency and performance outcomes. In the context of greenfield projects, a significant challenge is accurately capturing the target market segment the yard will serve. Factors like the pace of freight movement, the mix of international and domestic loads, and variations in container sizes emerge as pivotal determinants. Precisely aligning the facility design with these factors right from the outset is essential. Even if the facility's focus evolves down the line, a well-optimized equipment design can mitigate the impacts of such shifts.
At the forefront of considerations is the expeditious movement of material off the dock to prevent congestion. A remote sorting facility emerges as a potential solution. Rather than sorting containers at the dock, except for high-priority items, the strategy involves swiftly loading most containers onto the next train. These shipments are then transported inland to a facility with ample space for sorting. When goods are transferred quickly from docks to rail cars and sorted later, significant economies of scale can be achieved.
The significance of intermodal rail terminals in sustaining the supply chain is indisputable. Their optimization in the face of pandemic-induced disruptions is critical for the continuous flow of goods, operational robustness, and the mitigation of future disruptions. As the industry grapples with space constraints and seeks efficiency enhancements, innovative solutions like inventory stacking and advanced crane technologies offer pathways to navigate these challenges.
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