Hapag-Lloyd to implement AI planning tools.

Portchain (not to be confused with the cross-national port authority initiative spearheaded by the ports of Hamburg and Los Angeles that is called ChainPort) is a Copenhagen-based startup founded by three former McKinsey & Company project managers that builds AI-powered planning tools for container carriers and terminals. It has an investor team and Strategic Advisory Board consisting of three former senior executives from Maersk, a former CEO of Ports America, and the CEO of TrackMan, which is the lead investor in Portchain.

“Portchain will work closely with Hapag-Lloyd as they simplify and optimize workflows within voyage control and execution. Portchain’s predictive algorithms will assist Hapag-Lloyd’s Marine Operations teams identify potential issues in schedules earlier, leading to increased planning horizon, schedule reliability improvements, and reductions in bunker fuel cost,” Portchain said in a statement.

“We are strongly committed to further improve schedule reliability for our customers. To do this we are always looking for better and pioneering tools that enable us to improve our voyage control”, said Jörn Springer, Senior Director, Fleet Support Centre at Hapag-Lloyd. “Portchain’s cloud-based solution provides powerful insights into the robustness of schedules and allows us to quickly make changes in real time. We look forward to creating additional value from this partnership for our customers.”

Hapag-Lloyd’s decision to implement Portchain’s fleet planing software reinforces the view that shipping is a good match for new AI technologies, and there are certainly plenty of AI start ups targeting the shipping industry. They are not finding it an easy market - shipping generates a large amount of data, yet reinventing the physical process of shipping around the concept of data driven decision making is a huge challenge for carriers, let alone trying to pick the right AI partner to work with. Hapag-Lloyd is making a move, and implementing Portchain’s advance fleet planning software as a part of its push to become number one for quality.

“Portchain will combine large amounts of data with their proprietary machine learning algorithms to provide live insights on issues affecting the schedules of Hapag-Lloyd’s vessels,” the Portchain said.” It will allow for a more proactive and collaborative way of working which in consequence will bring benefits for customers, partners and Hapag-Lloyd”.

“As one of the leading ocean carriers, Hapag-Lloyd understands the need to be ahead of the curve when it comes to the adoption of digital solutions. At Portchain we are very excited to continue working with Hapag-Lloyd to help them realize their ambitions on schedule reliability and cost efficiency” Thor Thorup, CCO, Portchain. “This partnership will allow us to grow our solution with one of the most important players in the shipping industry and we are excited about the value we can create for Hapag-Lloyd”.