Post Company Visit - HIT

Company Preview

Hongkong International Terminals (HIT) is a member of HPH Trust, the world's first container port business trust listed in Singapore. HIT is also a part of HPH's global network of port and logistics operations, and continues to have access to services and resources enjoyed by companies within the HPH Group.

Situated in the Kwai Tsing container port area of Hong Kong - one of the busiest container ports in the world - HIT operates twelve berths at Terminals 4, 6, 7 and 9 and another two through its joint venture with COSCO Pacific Limited at Terminal 8 (East). HIT and COSCO-HIT handle over 50 per cent of Kwai Tsing's container port traffic.

Established in 1969, HIT has continuously set the industry benchmarks for productivity, efficiency and value-added services. Using modern management techniques, state-of-the-art computer systems and award winning IT applications, HIT has become the centre of excellence for the group, Hutchison Port Holdings. 

 Control Tower

This tower contains the controller of HIT. The controllers in this tower are responsible for different operation of HIT. For example, the ship planner will in charge of the loading and discharge operations. They will use the technology and different strategies to plan the loading and discharging sequences. The berth planner will decide where the ships should dock.

This screen is showing the nGen system of HIT. nGen refers to next generation terminal management system. This system shows the immediate situation of the terminal. The staff in the control tower can know the situation of the terminal by seeing the screen which help them to update the status of the terminal.

During the field work guided by the staff of HIT, we learned lot of things about the operation of a terminal.
First, we learned that there are different kinds of crane, which can perform different kinds of movement.
Second, we learned the communication between the terminal and the truck driver. Every driver need to check in through the specific gate. After checking in, a sms will be sent to driver about wherever the driver should go for picking up the cargo.
Third, we learned that there is a very powerful system for planning the allocation of cargoes in the terminals and on the ship. Doing the optimization of the allocation, the waiting time and the system time of the whole operation will be shorten.
Knowing these information, we got very practical understanding related to terminal operation. Other then the theory and example on the book, we can truly knowing what is really happening in the operation. It is definitely a valuable experience for us as a students learning logistic related topic.

The following is the video from the field report as a reference.