Before you can begin planning with the Navis N4 XPS planning and control system, XPS must be configured for your site to include your internal codes, yard layout, report formats, specific configuration, and models for ships that call at your terminal. Your Navis N4 administrator and Navis personnel typically complete these tasks during installation.
For information about any missing features or functionality, consult your N4 administrator.
Planners or managers using this manual should be familiar with the following:
The Windows operating system and its basic functions. For information about your Windows system, see the user's manuals that came with your computer.
Basic functions in XPS. See Navis N4: Basics.
Yard planning and control in XPS. See Navis N4: Yard Administrator and User Guide.
Planning for Equipment Control in XPS with ECN4. See Navis N4: Equipment Control Administrator and User Guide and Navis N4: Equipment Control Administrator and User Guide.
You might also need to review information for other N4 options licensed at your site.
The following N4 options are required:
Equipment Control Option - The Equipment Control Option enables you to cut back on equipment idle time and use less equipment to achieve the same or greater throughput as before. This Option includes functionality to efficiently choreograph real-time container moves among operators of container handling equipment (CHE) via a network of vehicle-mounted terminals (VMTs).
The dispatcher, or equipment controller, manages equipment deployment, dispatching, and monitoring from an XPS client workstation. When dispatching work instructions, XPS takes into account each CHE's attributes, such as the stacking capability or the types of containers it can handle. XPS also tracks real-time activity and the productivity of CHEs and cranes.
Vessel Planning and Control with the Quay Commander Option - Provides easy to use tools to create, plan, view, and check vessel stowage. This Option provides detailed vessel definition and real-time views, configurable color palettes and filtering, sequencing and re-sequencing tools, advanced stowage validation, and real-time tracking of the vessel plan execution.
This Option enables you to plan discharges and loads, select and sequence containers, prevent changes to planned moves, and print plans for and reports of discharges and loads.
Quay Commander Option - Provides crane plan programming and real-time monitoring of crane schedules, vessel container moves, vessel activities, and vessel labor assignments. This enables dynamic adjustments to predicted load, discharge times, and crane sequences. The application tracks the work progress in real time, adjusting the move times while highlighting potential crane clashes and unworkable sequences. In addition, this Option is required to view crane productivity.
Expert Decking Option - Provides a yard optimization module that reduces yard congestion and planning labor by automatically distributing containers throughout the yard with minimal on-going management from yard planners. This Option enables you to fully automate yard positioning without configuring detailed yard allocations. Instead, you configure a set of user-defined factors called yard planning strategies to determine how Expert Decking will allocate containers.
Yard Planning and Control with the Expert Decking Option - Provides full control of yard operations of any type and throughput volume, using all types of container handling equipment. This Option provides a detailed yard model, graphical views, and real-time yard planning to enable you to achieve optimal yard planning efficiencies. In addition, this Option provides automatic assignment of container positions based on predefined yard planning strategies to ensure that incoming containers, whether from the gate, vessel, or train, are positioned in the yard with the goal of minimizing yard-based container re-handles, thus saving time and resources.
This Option enables XPS to automatically assign slot-specific container positions based on container attributes, allocations, real-time yard space, blocked or disabled slots, location of equipment or personnel, fill sequence, and more. In addition, XPS can automatically segregate containers by weight class within the yard according to the overall allocation plan.
You can use this Option as an advanced decision tool to forecast yard demand or test operational scenarios. This results in better yard management and optimal use of equipment, labor, and yard space.
Rail Planning and Control Option (required for rail operations only) - Provides a solution for complete management of rail operations for terminals with on-dock rail or inland rail facilities. With this Option, you can quickly model any type of railcar, define and edit the train consist, graphically view the track position of each car on a screen, create load and discharge plans, and validate plans against route restrictions and car restrictions.
This Option provides full planning and control for discharges from inbound and through trains, loading to outbound and through trains, and real-time tracking of plan execution.
RDT Foundation Package II Option - The RDT Foundation Package II Option includes a grouping of RDT Options. These Options provide all of the commonly used functionality for radio data terminal (RDT) handhelds and N4 Mobile devices used by clerks at the gate, yard, vessel, and rail.
For information about the options used at your site, see your N4 administrator.