| SUMMARY | Baltimore's new Seagrit Marine Terminal is a high-tech wonder. This port is a pacesetter in applying computer technology to the task of rapidly loading and unloading container-carrying ships. Seagrit has the world's largest, fastest, most automated cranes and a computerized truck and rail plaza. The task of transferring containers from ship to shore and vice versa at this "intermodal" (ability to interchange sea containers between ship, rail and truck modes of transport) port is achieved with unprecedented speed, efficiency and ease. |
| ANALYSIS | Seven weeks after openings its gates, Seagrit has proved to be the technological marvel it was designed to be. It is the kind of facility that will allow American ports to again become the premer (efficient and productive) cargo handlers in the world. There are three ship berths and a barge berth available with a fourth under construction. Two are under lease: one to the Mediterranean Shipping Company serving Europe and one to the largest sea-container operator in the world, Evergreen Marine, a Taiwan-based corporation. These two shippers expect to move 90,000 containers through the terminal in the first year. The terminal can currently handle 150,000 boxes a year at the three berths. It can take a trucker as long as three hours to get in and out of other non-computerized container ports. Dick Gress, a chief clerk at Seagrit, said "I'm not a computer man. I only had typing in high school and I use two fingers. But I had 19 drivers lined up and I knocked them out in about 11 minutes, and they all had double moves: one box coming in and one box going out." |
| STATEMENT | Productivity is one of a manager's first priorities. American industry is again focusing on survival and the need to become competitive in this increasingly competitive environment. |