The Port Authority of the Algeciras Bay (APBA) participated, last Thursday 20th April, in the conference “Digital Twins in the port environment”, organised by Digital Twins for Infrastructures & Cities, Puertos del Estado and the schools ETS of Civil Engineering and ETS of Naval Engineering of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM), which was held in the university’s own facilities.
The event was opened by the director of the ETS of Civil Engineers, José Miguel Atienza, and the director of the ETS of Naval Engineers, Antonio Crucelaegui. Then, before continuing with the two technical sessions of the programme, the presentation entitled “The digital twin within the new Spanish port strategic framework” was given by the president of Puertos del Estado, Álvaro Rodríguez Dapena. Throughout the presentation, Rodríguez Dapena highlighted the importance of data in the digital transformation of port operations, since, in his own words, “the sharing of data between the agents of the Port Community, public institutions and Port Authorities can optimise port operations as a whole”.
This was followed by the first of the technical sessions, which dealt with the “Strategic vision of the port sector”; and was organised around different presentations, where points such as the importance of digital twins in public and private innovation strategies in the port sector, the use of digital twins for the management of infrastructures or the role of innovation ecosystems in the development of digital twins were discussed. This first block, moderated by Rafel Molina, PhD of the School of Civil Engineering, was attended by the secretary of the “Ports 4.0” Technical Committee of Puertos del Estado, José Llorca, the director of the Infrastructure Area of the Port Authority of Barcelona, Miguel Pindado, the executive partner of Gartner, Francisco de los Santos, and the head of the Technological Development Area of the APBA, Jesús Medina.
Specifically, Medina exposed, through the presentation entitled “Algeciras Digital Twins”, the trajectory in digital transformation and innovation of the Port of Algeciras, historically linked with the development of digital twins as part of its digital ecosystem. Since 2017, year in which the Port Authotity deployed its first solution based on digital twins, many platforms have been developed in this technology, such as the development of a 3D modelling system for the management of safety and port facilities, Port Collaborative Decision Making (PortCDM) tools, as well as predictive and prescriptive tools for the optimisation of cargo flows through the port and ship calls. Likewise, during the presentation, he emphasised the importance of business needs over the mere implementation of technology, stating that “technology is not the solution, we must first of all be aware of the business challenges and technology must therefoe be a tool for their solution”.
The second technical session of the day, moderated by the head of the Port Community Services Area of Puertos del Estado, Jaime Luezas, focused on success stories and inspiring models of digital twins in port facilities. The APBA was also represented in this block by Juan González, member of the APBA’s Advanced Digital Services Centre, who spoke about the PROAS project (Port Risk Optimised Advanced System). This project is focused on the development of an Advanced Prediction System of the Vessel-Infrastructure Operativity, as a tool to aid decision-making in port planning, based on predictions of the physical environment, the planning of vessel calls and planned operations. González himself pointed out that the strong innovative load constitutes the first Innovative Public Procurement through Competitive Dialogue in the Spanish port system. Currently, and once it has been identified the expected needs of future users, the developments are in the last activities of Phase I, preparing a MVP or Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
The rest of the presentations were given by the Chief Technology Officer of the Port Authority of Huelva, Manuel Francisco Martínez, the Levante delegate of Arisnova, José Luís Expósito, the CEO of Detektia, Candela Sancho and the director of Ghenova Digital, Oliver Martínez.
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