Page 15 - Port of Hamburg Magazine 1.2020

able to meet our customers’ needs far more efficient- ly.”
To separate the wheat from the chaff, or to ensure the most full and precise recognition of damage, is the primary aim of a digitalization project scheduled to last 30 months and known as COOKIE. This is short for ‘Container (Services) Optimized through Artificial IntelligencE’. Toni Jakat gave birth to the project and brought various partners to one table. He submitted a research application to the Federal Ministry of Trans- port and Digital Infrastructure – BMVI – that respond- ed with 900,000 euros from the ‘Innovative Port Technologies – IHATEC’ support program. Underlining the importance of HHLA, HCCR’s par- ent company, as technological leader on digitaliza- tion, it is running a total of nine IHATEC projects. Its project partner is the Fraunhofer Center for Mari- time Logistics in Hamburg-Harburg. This is devel- oping an adaptive algorithm for an image recogni- tion procedure, or an artificial intelligence – AI. This aims to recognize and reliably assess the current status of a container. That first involves evaluation
of literally thousands of saved photos. The process is called ‘deep learning’.
“AI will compare the live image and stored photos of damage,” is how Jakat defines the aim. “Then we will no longer need to bother with boxes fit for despatch, and can look after more repairs.” If permanently in- stalled cameras automatically photographed every square centimetre of an empty container passing check- points at HHLA terminals on a truck, that would make it possible to identify the share of undamaged boxes. Another of COOKIE’s aims is sustainability, for in very similar fashion AI could one day help HCCR to use its tank container washing unit more efficiently. Vast quantities of water and chemical additives are cur- rently used to clean obstinate contamination in the tanks. COOKIE provides interesting prospects for tank washing, too, says Jakat: “Using automatic algorithms, if the IT system could correctly assess how severe contamination is, then the washing programme could be optimized individually for each tank.” That would be a step towards saving resources. ■
DIGITAL DECADE ■
TONI JAKAT,
HCCR SALES CHIEF
Port of Hamburg Magazine | March 2020 | 15
© HHLA / Nele Martensen