One happy day, the mining automation focused indurad met with an Container Terminal and exchanged technology insights about automation concepts and sensor technology. The sea terminal described their needs in automation and indurad was surprised that there is no automation in the rail terminals and on their Cantilever Rail Mounted Gantry Cranes (CRMG).
indurad accepted the challenge and provided the tracking and tagging system for the terminal. This enables the tracking of personnel and vehicles in real time. This information is used to route container moves and to prevent too close proximity of containers to humans.
As the first project was successful, indurad founded Yardeye, a subsidiary focusing only on container terminal automation. In the next steps, Yardeye developed an automation middleware between the TOS and the Crane controller in order to complement their offer to the industry.
Intermodal terminals are difficult to automate as their operations have several stakeholders working in the field. Thus, it has been a challenge to automate without losing productivity. In the last three years, indurad and their specialized daughter company, Yardeye, successfully automated three intermodal yards, one in a major Canadian Sea Terminal and two US American Hinterland Intermodal Terminals.