Port of Rotterdam – With Digital Twin the smartest port!

The Port of Rotterdam has been fully committed to new digital business models in recent years, and is now supplying solutions for the supply chain and the automation of other ports, for example. The Digital Twin of the port has been developed, among other things, to make the digital strategy tangible and visual for the own organization. The objective is to be the first port to receive autonomously sailing ships, but above all to keep the port a leader in efficiency and possibilities for the its customers.

When developing the Digital Twin, it was soon discovered that the template used in "Industry 4.0" was far too limited. It lacked the crucial context and conditions. In addition to data on the dimensions of objects and time, many context variables are also important, such as weather and other conditions, to be included in business rules and contractual agreements.

The Digital Twin and the sensor networks and data lake in that context provide a golden basis for rich, versatile, unambiguous real-time data. This makes further optimization of the efficiency of the port processes possible and offers data for new digital customer products. Consider, for example, a service where customers can choose the fastest, cheapest or most sustainable route to the berth. More new data-driven services will become possible in the long term. The question remains whether these are being put on the market as new paid services or as an extension of the service level of the port. The Digital Twin is developing into a situation where for the entire port area the digital world is the same as the real world. This has recently become known as the Digital Twin of an Organization. Thus Rotterdam remains the smartest port.