Studio Ab Ovo

Studio Ab Ovo - Ard Jan Cieremans - Business Consultant at Ab Ovo - Talking about NextLogic and how it is helping make the Port of Rotterdam more efficient.

• Studio Ab Ovo Host • Season 1 • Episode 8

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Smarter Planning for the Port of Rotterdam: How NextLogic Connects Barges and Terminals


How do you coordinate hundreds of inland vessels, almost a thousand terminal calls and millions of containers in one of the busiest ports in the world?

In this episode of Studio Ab Ovo, Martijn Meerman talks with Ard Jan Cieremans, Business Consultant at Ab Ovo, about his work with NextLogic and the challenge of optimizing inland container shipping in the Port of Rotterdam.

NextLogic brings together two sides of the same logistical puzzle: the demand from inland barges that need to load or unload containers, and the available capacity at deep-sea terminals. Barge operators provide information about the terminals they need to visit, while terminals indicate which cranes, quays and handling capacity are available. The system then creates an optimized planning that continuously adapts to changing circumstances.

Ard Jan explains why this is so important. Before NextLogic, much of the planning was done manually. Barge operators and terminal planners called each other throughout the day to make and adjust appointments. When one delay occurred, the consequences could quickly spread through the entire port like a domino effect.

Today, an optimizer continuously recalculates the planning, matching demand and supply on a scale that would be impossible for people to manage manually.

In this episode, we discuss:

  • How NextLogic connects inland barges with terminal capacity
  • Why timing is critical in container logistics
  • The impact of demurrage and detention costs
  • How disruptions in global shipping affect planning in Rotterdam
  • The complexity of coordinating hundreds of barge rotations and terminal calls
  • How around 4 million containers move through this part of the supply chain each year
  • Why the planning process had to be built almost from scratch
  • How algorithms can evaluate thousands of planning possibilities
  • Why change management was one of the biggest challenges
  • The importance of trust when people move from manual planning to automated optimization
  • How more than 1,000 people can be affected by the planning
  • The role of increasing computing power in the future of port optimization

One of the most interesting insights from the conversation is that the technology itself is only part of the challenge. Ard Jan estimates that a large part of the work involved in introducing automated planning is actually about change management: helping planners, operators and other stakeholders understand, trust and work with a system that can calculate thousands of possibilities in seconds.

The result is a fascinating look behind the scenes of the Port of Rotterdam, where software, logistics and human decision-making come together to keep one of Europe’s most important transport hubs moving.

🎙️ Listen to the full episode of Studio Ab Ovo and discover how smarter planning can make complex container logistics more efficient, predictable and resilient.

Our mission is to improve the operational processes, to support the sustainability targets, and enhance the profitability of our customers with more efficient resource usage and streamlined processes.

We do this because we care.

We thrive in complexity. We embrace innovative, business-minded thinking and cherish devotion and passion. The perfect combination of talented colleagues, strong industry ties & eagerness to create eco-friendly solutions.

Always Hands-On

We take a no-nonsense, down-to-earth approach to tackling challenges by rolling up our sleeves. We go the extra mile to deliver high quality results that provide the most value to our customers.

Always Together

We believe in better together – with our customers and with our teams. By bringing people, processes, and data together we create mutual benefits that have an impact on our customers and society. 

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Martijn

Good morning, listeners and viewers at Studio Up Ovo. We're talking today to Artjan Sieremans, business consultant from uh Up Ovo, working at NextLogic. Welcome Artjan.

Ard Jan

Thank you. Also, welcome at Up Ovo.

Martijn

Yeah, thank you. So, what what do you do at at uh Next Logic NextLogic?

Ard Jan

Uh NextLogic uh is a uh a service to plan uh uh the inland vessels with containers in Rotterdam, uh, on the different terminals in Rotterdam. And what we do, we bring together demand and supply. So demand is the inland barges that are coming into Rotterdam to bring or to fetch containers, and supply is the uh capacity on the terminals. So actually, the terminals they tell us um what cranes they have available at what K, at what location. And the barge operators tell us what uh container uh uh terminals they want to visit in Rotterdam. So from the inland you have a choice to go by truck or by train or by barge. Of course, yeah. And then um, well, if we if if there's time enough to transport the containers to Rotterdam by barge, they plan them on the barge. And if there's no time, if there's a hurry, then they plan it on the truck or on the on the train. Or combined, that can be.

Martijn

Yeah, what is and what is the choice? Is it is it just time, the barge, because a barge can can take a lot of more containers than a truck, of course.

Ard Jan

Uh yes, but you uh you have um if you rent a container, like you you want a container to transport your goods, you have the container available for a certain uh time window. Okay, so at a certain time you have to pick up the container in the port or in the inland uh terminal, and you have to bring it uh to the terminal in time to be on the vessel, on the deep sea vessel, like the deep sea ships that are going all over the world. And if you pick up your container too early, then you pay money because you have the container longer available. If you bring the container too early on the terminal with with goods, then you occupy the container terminal, so you have to pay for that.

Martijn

Oh, really?

Ard Jan

So you have uh yeah, you have to be in time, otherwise you have to pay demerge and detention. Okay. I wrote a report on that also. Okay, so it's something different.

Martijn

But that is that's a difficult thing because of course uh the container is a steady thing, but when you when you're on on the sea, uh deep sea or even the rivers, there can be all kinds of things that interrupt. Interrupt your yeah.

Ard Jan

Yeah, yeah, like if uh like if there's a Suezque crisis or if the if ships have to sail around Africa, of course the whole uh rhythm of the planning is uh going differently. Yeah. And uh shippers in inland have like also rhythm to transport their containers to Rotterdam and uh and back to to be transported all over the world. And if that's uh if something goes wrong in this dynamic, then the there will can be congestion on the deep sea terminals, yeah. And then the whole planning uh can be uh toppled over on the deep sea terminals.

Martijn

Yeah, so because so you have the one way from deep sea to inland and from inland to deep sea. The both both those plannings are taken care by NextLogic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ard Jan

So um like if I'm I'm a barge operator, so I'm I'm planning inland uh uh vessels uh to Rotterdam and back. Yeah. Then I'll check out how many containers I have to pick up on different terminals. I tell NextLogic, okay, I want to go to this terminal and I want to fetch 40 containers there, and I want to fetch 40 containers there and bring 40 containers there and 40 containers there. Yeah. Or 200 or then uh we plan it. So then the Deep C terminal tells us at what boulder position they have, what crane available with what speed, and then we plan the calls. This morning I checked in the system and I saw that we there were like 300 rotations, so combinations of calls, so uh circle through Rotterdam. Yeah. That were in the planning, and we had 950 calls in the planning.

Martijn

And how much how much containers do you traffic in the in the in the in a year?

Ard Jan

The total in a year it's uh four million.

Martijn

Wow. Yeah. You cannot imagine how much cubic meters on about of goods that is. Yeah, yeah.

Ard Jan

It's all different goods, it's uh like uh like little plastic balls or like a cars, Teslas were put in it, sometimes gold and uh paper, wine, everything is uh transporting containers.

Martijn

So the c yeah, because you see the cars sometimes on the uh on the trains, on the wagons, but they also put them in the container.

Ard Jan

Yeah, like Tesla, they had different Teslas uh toppled into the uh like uh stapled into the uh containers because Tesla didn't have enough volume in the beginning to uh plant it on the like on the large specialized uh barges, uh uh specialized ships. Oh okay.

Martijn

Oh, in containers. Oh really? Oh, the volume was too low to have a whole ship, and then they put them in containers so they can combine it with other goods. Yeah, wow.

Ard Jan

And also you have like wine, they put uh wine in the back and they put the back into the container and then pop it full of wine. And of course, you have also the freeze uh containers. Of course. Uh we have uh Avico in the Netherlands and they have uh the freeze containers to put in the the potatoes, the fries them to uh to uh Saudi Arabia or anything.

Martijn

Okay. So it's it's so that's also something that you have to keep in mind for okay, what kind of goods are in the containers, how to combine those. And and how how how does that work? Because it's digitized now, yeah. But is is that or is it al already an on an ongoing thing for long for a long time? When when did does this did this start to digitize this planning?

Ard Jan

I think the biggest issue when we started was when a need uh uh started to be uh developed, or the need actually was to to match the pan demand and supply. Yeah. And like before NextLogic, everything was done by hand. So uh a terminal, an inland terminal, planning a inlet bars was calling uh to Rotterdam to the different terminals and then making uh plan. So I'll be there on Saturday, and with another terminal, I'll be there on Sunday. Okay, I'll be there on Friday, and so they made a plan beforehand, and then of course, at the moment you start uh the executing the planning, then of course you have to depend on if the containers are available and uh how the dynamics are in Rotterdam. If in Rotterdam, if it's on a quiet day, like if there's no congestion or anything, no problem, you can maybe make a circle, but if there's like dynamics so or delays on the terminal, then this delay is like a domino effect through the whole port of Rotterdam, so that everybody is in in uh I do it's stress. It has an impact on everybody, and then everybody was in the old days was gonna phone and try to to solve it, or the shipper on the on board of the inland bars was trying to plan it again. That was going on set 24-7.

Martijn

By all kinds of people, yeah, but by all groups of people, so all individuals are calling each other for and also but also what you said about uh that you have to pay when it's it's early, or you have to pay when it's late, or yeah, yeah. But you have a certain window, so yeah, but it's difficult when you have every every people are involved because it can also hum the more people are involved, the more yeah, yeah, errors that can be made.

Ard Jan

So it's also yeah, there are many uh many stakeholders, of course, because uh the company that is that gives that applies or that supplies the container that gives you the container says okay, you can pick it up and drop it off uh at a certain time. So you have a a window, a fixed window for that to to bring it and to uh fetch it. And also uh of course you have the the shipper who wants to transport goods who has a deadline, then there's the most of the freight forward who has a deadline, then the barge operator's fed in the bars has a deadline, and of course the the deep sea vessels, the deep sea terminals. And the deep sea terminals, of course, they have the big vessels dropping of uh like 7,000 containers at once. Yeah. So sometimes they are there 36 hours uh being loaded to the city. Oh really?

Martijn

Oh, that takes oh that takes that long? Yeah, wow.

Ard Jan

And of course the deep sea vessels they have to make a circle around the world?

Martijn

Yeah, of course. And those circles around the world they have to be uh well, they can be storm, there can be bad weather, it can be good weather, so that that that they can go faster.

Ard Jan

So they always have a priority to be to be helped. Wow, yeah, you have a the deep sea vessels have a con deep sea terminals have a contract with uh deep sea vessel operators.

Martijn

Okay, and not with the barge ones, no, no. Ah, okay.

Ard Jan

So the deep sea uh uh container terminals they have a contract to unload and load uh deep sea vessel and they have uh a certain time to do that because the vessel deep sea vessel has to also to leave the port of course in time to be in time like in Hamburg or to sew back to Asia. Yeah, because if they get out of their uh plan, it's cost a lot of money, yeah. Because then they will be late in um maybe in the end in Shanghai and then yeah, it's 7,000 containers uh against 200.

Martijn

Like so that's of course, yeah, that's the big number kind of play. Yeah, yeah. Oh well that's that's incredible. But but and and in in in ways of efficiency can you talk about like that that what you developed or what software now is used now is making this this much efficiency in the in the in the process? Is there time or is there a money thing? Yeah.

Ard Jan

Um when the the main main problem was that there was no really a benchmark. Okay, because of course in the beginning everybody was making their own appointments. So the first plan we had to make as a benchmark for the planning. Okay, we made by hand.

Martijn

Yeah. So really, okay, still, yeah.

Ard Jan

There was like for the uh the duration of uh inland barges in Rotterdam, in the port of Rotterdam was calculated always. Okay. When they came into Rotterdam and left Rotterdam. We took that data to create the first benchmark, so we checked out to create these uh the inland barges whether they visited these terminals. So we think this was the crane speed, and then we made the first benchmark. Oh, okay, and then we made uh the first planning to match the demand and supply, and then we saw that of course uh like an algorithm can easier find and combine uh the demand and supply.

Martijn

So you really started from scratch, yeah. It's not that you say okay, we have already this part in in digitize digitized, but it was really like okay, would you take a ship, uh a vessel, and then look what this what the circle was that it made, like with the with the stopwatch almost.

Ard Jan

And of course, you were also planning on the second mass slug then. Of course, the second mass clucter was not ready, was not there yet.

Martijn

Wow. How long is that ago? That is yeah, long ago. Yeah, long ago.

Ard Jan

I think uh I think it's like eight, nine years ago. Yeah. Because of the balance, the balance uh where where barges would seal to and how much course they would do on the old terminals and the new terminals on the mass flag. Of course, the cranes had to be started up and of course to be uh so yeah.

Martijn

And also the I think the because you talk about different roles, different people who worked on uh on every piece of the of the of the harbor, actually. So it was also difficult, I think, to bring that together. Uh, that does every everybody you want to share their knowledge and want to share their data to to make a a good planning piece of planning software.

Ard Jan

I think the first if if you start with uh automating uh planning, the first thing of course is to to make this automatic planning. Yeah. I think the hardest part, like 80% of the project, is to change management. Yeah. Because if you're used to uh phone uh to the terminal, and terminals were also, of course, planning uh barges. They were saying, okay, I want to have this one or this one or call uh barge operators or everybody was calling each other in the informal way, and then suddenly someone says I've got an algorithm that's calculating it. That's of course.

Martijn

Oh, it takes the informality uh away. It's it takes the per for them, it takes the personal touch away. Yeah, you cannot just go like, oh, can you help me even this time? Or can you it's it's yeah, it's it's more yeah, it's more like a business.

Ard Jan

I think it's uh calling people and a lot of stress to to uh of course uh to arrange things and everybody's uh talking to everybody and trying to to match uh supply and demand. I think it's not not very efficient, and of course it's uh it's yeah, it's very but in a romantic way it's the it's people working together, of course.

Martijn

And that you take a little bit of that away.

Ard Jan

I think you feel more uh the possibility to intervene with the planning if you can phone people and you have uh contact. Now, of course, it's it's being planned by an algorithm. And sometimes algorithm does uh strange things, sometimes it's explainable because on the last minutes things can change, like a deep sea vessel has containers that are not available, so the planning is changing, or there's a delay on the terminal, so things are changing. Then of course the the algorithm makes like uh I think sometimes it can make like 26,000 calculations on a day. Well, and one calculation calculates like more than 10,000 possibilities to change the planning.

Martijn

Incredible.

Ard Jan

And then we continuously get uh get updates on actually. You could never do that as a person.

Martijn

You just can't you just cannot. But it's so there's also like uh when you're a as a business consultant, it's always business consultant, of course, and then uh in IT, but it's still really a people's job then. Yeah, you have to really make sure that everybody trusts that calculation or the the the software that you use, or the the so the so is it is it a solver?

Ard Jan

Are you yeah, it's uh C Plex is an optimizer.

Martijn

Of an optimizer, sorry, yeah.

Ard Jan

Yeah, yeah, and of course it has impact on many people more than I think. Yeah, you you you talk to people, of course, uh representing barge operators and terminals, but of course, behind those people there are people that are on the daily operation, I think you know, impact uh more than a thousand people. Really? And you cannot you cannot directly inter interact with people, of course. No, of course. And that would be impossible to get that done. So it's really um yeah, the the the the change process is uh very important to be able to explain and then being able to explain things in combination with automatic planning uh using an optimizers well to bridge that gap is uh a big complexity.

Martijn

Yeah, and a challenging, a challenging job. Yeah, yeah. And how how do people now uh for for themselves do you do you do you recognize that they they are they are trusting it, they are use they are using it to the fullest, or are there still steps to to take?

Ard Jan

Um yeah, I think there's always steps to take. Yeah, and I think it's uh also for us, of course. It was the first time that we uh okay automated the planning in the port. So for everybody it was um difficult to forecast beforehand what was gonna happen.

Martijn

You're all in this on the same journey, actually. So it's not like hey, we are Appovo, we know what we uh we know what to do and just trust us, and that's it. You really have to trust each other with going to that point on the horizon.

Ard Jan

Yeah, and getting feedback from people, and because otherwise you if you start on a project, you deep dive into the uh details. Of course, then of course to to get those details to the people to see that uh in the same way. Of course, they don't they never can see it in the same way as we see it from the calculation uh side.

Martijn

Okay.

Ard Jan

But of course they see they see operation, they see the operation side.

Martijn

They see the operation, yeah. And is it from is it from like you say planners, but is it also that you take uh in account the people who are working on the on the harbor side or on the ship?

Ard Jan

Yeah, yeah. So like on the deep sea terminals, they have a like a lex logic uh screen where they can see the planning. And um so also even the shippers in the factories in Germany, the logistics manager they can see uh what's happening because there's a lot of systems are connected, uh so uh everybody can see the status of the container. That of course also gives dynamics because like the shipper that is uh in the Interland that we don't have contact with, and he sees a lot of changes in the planning, yeah, and he wants an explanation for that because he wants to make sure that the container is in time because otherwise in one make the window and then it's gonna cost money. Of course, and you have to pay the emergency and detention.

Martijn

Yeah, so that's yeah, that's it's a huge, it's a huge operation on itself. Yeah, next to the operation of the to get the container from the right place to from A to B. It's also a big operation to get everything running, up and running, and get the planning done. Yeah. And and how is because you you said like 26,000 goals of calculations, and every calculation has 10 10,000 options? You can just you cannot even imagine how much that is on a you really have to you really have to trust yeah, where you're working with then in the in that way. Is it is there yeah, is there still because every everybody's talking about AI or new developments in programming or coding. Do you see differ different options for the future? Is is is how is how is how are things developing?

Ard Jan

I think uh with all the the the increased calculation power. Because maybe there will be like uh like new developments uh giving more opportunities. But it's difficult to to uh to steer calculations with all the different parameters. Yeah, but but I think in the end if if the calculation power increases, then it's uh there should be other options. But it's it's mainly like uh like the the full puzzle if you would like if we would stop it and stop the planning and try to get to the lowest score because the this optimizer is uh trying to get a low score for the planning, and the score includes uh lateness of barges, uh barges planned together at the same time. That gives a score, like uh several several points, and so it tries to to minimize the score. Ah, okay.

Martijn

So the efficiency score has to be like to the to the to the one or so uh yeah, no, to the one would be very nice, but okay, okay. Oh, really? Yeah, wow.

Ard Jan

So then then it would do it would yeah, that contains but are there too are there are there too many options? That's just so many options to to find to find all the options because you cannot take in the whole planning and calculate it, so we take pieces of it. Okay. But if of course calculation power increases, you can maybe take the whole planning and uh to one situation, so then you can get from bow from from from Basel to uh to Rotterdam in one in one uh in one turn. It's mainly mainly then all the changes will be then be calculated at one time, so then you get one uh situation.

Martijn

Now you get because you're selecting different pieces of the puzzle and then optimizing those different pieces, then so it's not about the the the future is not the software itself or the the the solution itself, but it's more that the more power you get from IT actually from from uh hardware that the software can use even more efficiently and more uh dynamically, actually. Yeah, wow.

Ard Jan

So I'm looking forward to using a quantum computer and yeah, that's I can understand what that does.

Martijn

Uh so when we we stop this podcast uh to conclude to conclude. Uh what is the next thing you're going to do? Look at uh at the planning again.

Ard Jan

Um well the next thing uh I'm not gonna do today or uh looking how the planning is uh behaving because yeah, of course it's so dynamic and you have millions of uh choices in in the puzzle, so it's always good to check out uh what the system is doing and if there are things uh different and cannot be explained into a deep dive in that.

Martijn

Well, good luck with that. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for thanks.