Kalmar invests three million euros to enhance testing in customer projects at its Technology and Competence Centre in Tampere, Finland

Kalmar, part of Cargotec, has made a decision to invest approximately EUR three million in a new port automation testing and development platform at its Technology and Compete Centre in Tampere, Finland. The platform will be used primarily for testing in customer projects and new product releases. The investment includes all modules to run an automated container yard operation, including the total automation system, a new automatic stacking crane (ASC) and the R&D work required for the deployment.

In 2011-2013, Cargotec invested approximately EUR 35 million in the construction of the Technology and Competence Centre in Tampere. In the Centre, Kalmar has the industry’s largest automation test field and world-class facilities and laboratories for prototyping, simulation, testing, monitoring and optimisation. Automated equipment can be tested with live equipment in Tampere and via remote connection 24/7, even when the customer is located on the other side of the world. This set-up is effectively used in the product development, delivery, optimisation and maintenance phases.

Olli Isotalo, President, Kalmar, said: “In the past, a lot of time was used for testing and optimising at the customer site after the equipment had been delivered. In an automation project this can have a significant impact on the implementation time and cost.”

With the latest investment, Kalmar has a complete end-to-end automation system in Tampere, including automated and manual straddle and shuttle carries for horizontal transportation, automatic stacking crane system for yard operations and automated truck handling for landside operations, all integrated with Kalmar terminal logistic system (TLS) and Navis N4 terminal operating systems (TOS). In addition, the virtual environment in the Technology and Competence Centre will be used for regression testing of new software releases.

“With this unique set-up, we can start the testing well in advance before the equipment delivery and keep the on-site testing at a minimum. This will result in faster implementation times and our customers can expect the shortest possible time to value in port automation projects. Furthermore, we will have the capability to test new product features before their market introduction. This will shorten the time to market for our new products and further improve their reliability and quality,” Isotalo notes.

The new Kalmar automation testing platform is expected to be fully operational at the Tampere Technology and Competence Centre in early 2016.

Kalmar is the global leader in port automation with several industry firsts in this area and major recent references from automated terminal projects worldwide.