(/If you service large numbers of barges, you may be able to improve operational efficiency by double banking barges. Double banking is berthing two barges alongside the same section of the quay so that one is berthed alongside the other barge, as shown:
Note: This functionality can only be used with an N4 Automation implementation that uses an ECS database.
For each barge berth, you will need a POW that will receive jobs from a separate WQ. The second POW is referred to as the Virtual POW, since there is really only one physical crane.
The virtual POW appears in the Points of Work window with the QC POW1 name + ~ and any character. In this example, the first POW is C201 and the virtual POW is C201~1:
However, in the ECS database, the ID for the virtual POW is converted to drop the ~1 to match the ID of the first main POW:
When work queue information is passed back to N4 from the ECS, the POW Che ID is converted back to the two separate POWs; the actual POW, C201, and the virtual POW, C201~1.