Following the completion of assembly of the Boxbay High Bay Store system (HBS) at Jebel Ali Port a pilot phase operation is set to begin before September 2020.
The final major component of the system, a truck crane, was a assembled on site at the begi ning of July.
The automated truck crane is used to lift containers on and off external trucks. Containers for the landside operations move in and out of BoxBay on underground conveyor belts before being lifted to their slot in the rack by stacker cranes.
BoxBay is a joint venture by DP World and German industrial engineering specialist SMS group GmbH.
The HBS proof of concept provides 792 container slots. A full industrial HBS yard behind the two under construction berths of Jebel Ali Terminal 4 would be able to handle more than three million containers per year.
The stacker cranes and truck handling cranes will be operated in full automation. The shuttle carrier will start testing with a driver at first during the pilot operation phase.
BoxBay is designed to be fully electrified and will be the only container yard that can be powered by solar panels on its roof.
Sultan Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and CEO of DP World, said, “This is a major milestone delivered in our exploration of new and innovative technologies that add value for our operations and customers. In these challenging times, we are bringing container high bay store to the world’s supply chains, demonstrating our strengths as a global provider of smart logistics solutions.
“With speed, efficiency and digital fitness being key aspects of the port and terminal business, we intend to deliver ‘life inventory’ to our importers and we are confident BoxBay will play a significant role revolutionising container storage in the years ahead.”
