Five reachstackers at the Ghana Ports and Harbour Authority terminals, three at GPHA and two at the Amaris Terminal, have been successfully retro-fitted with Konecranes’s Static Weighing System. This means customers of the port are now able to receive a VGM service.
On 1 July 2016 the new IMO SOLAS (International Maritime Organisation’s Convention on Safety at Life at Sea) Chapter VI amendment came into effect. The amendment stipulates that all containers need to have their gross verified mass (VGM) recorded before the container can be loaded onto a vessel. Ports and terminals have consequently been rushing to implement technologies to provide this essential service to their shipping customers.
The Ghana Ports and Harbour Authority (GPHA) has partnered with Paterson Simons to address these additional compliance requirements.
Paterson Simons are dealers in heavy-lifting equipment throughout West Africa. Amongst others they represent Konecranes, Swedish crane and lift truck manufacturer. In response to the need for VGM, Konecranes developed a Static Weighing System that can measure the weight of the lifted container with 1 percent full-scale accuracy in less than 5 seconds. The weighing system, launched by Konecranes at TOC Europe in March, can be retro-fitted to any existing Konecranes reachstacker truck.
Because GPHA already uses a number of Konecranes lift trucks fitted with TruConnect software the solutions were swiftly implemented. TruConnect is Konecranes’s proprietary tracking and analysis software that enables cloud-based fleet management of everything from fuel consumption, temperature and oil levels to operator behaviour such as quick braking, trip monitoring and use of the safety override. The new weighing system is an addition to TruConnect and was installed onto the reachstackers by Paterson Simons engineers, ensuring swift and accurate implementation of a VGM service to satisfy SOLAS requirements.