Corporate

This section gives voice to companies and organisations that have worked with INESC TEC in various projects and activities. A good relationship and good examples are fundamental ingredients for science and technology to serve society with equal amounts of enthusiasm and professionalism.

Luís Marinho Dias, DIRECTOR OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS AT APDL - ADMINISTRATION OF THE PORTS OF DOURO, LEIXÕES AND VIANA DO CASTELO, S.A.

• "This long and exemplary collaboration with INESC TEC has always been very positive. It is a very dynamic and multidisciplinary R&D institution, capable of responding to the complex challenges of the APDL, and supporting the design and implementation of very concrete solutions."

• “As a result of this partnership, we are certainly very different from what we were 20 years ago. We have managed to persist in our strategy and to create value in a sustainable way.”"

History of the relationship between the company and INESC TEC

The relationship between INESC TEC and APDL dates back to 1993. In March 1996, the two institutions signed a cooperation protocol.

Throughout these years, we have worked on different national and European research projects with important results, such as projects SCOPe, 3PORT, DIW2020, PORTMOS, MIELE and WiderMoS.

The collaboration protocol was renewed in 2016, with an addendum focusing on the internationalisation and management of results generated as part of joint projects.

Business areas

Port administration

Year in which the institution collaborated with INESC TEC

Since 1993.

Title of the project

SCOPe (Electronic Port Community System)

3PORT (platform to manage port authority processes)

DIW2020 (Douro’s Inland Waterway 2020)

PortMoS (Portuguese motorways of the sea)

MIELE (Multimodal Interoperability E-services for Logistics and Environmental Sustainability)

WiderMoS (Wide Interoperability and new governance moDels for freight Exchange linking Regions through Multimodal maritime based cOrridorS)

INESC TEC Centre(s) with which the company collaborated

CSIG – Centre for Information Systems and Computer Graphics

Project manager (INESC TEC)

António Gaspar

Statement about the Project

The APDL is a state-owned company which manages the ports of Leixões, Viana do Castelo and Douro, as well as the Douro waterways.

The APDL is very proactive in the sector and strives for constant innovation, promoting the development of its area of jurisdiction, with a special focus in the Public Interest sphere.

In this context, and to complete its Mission effectively, the APDL has signed a protocol with INESC TEC, because this seemed the most suitable institution to respond to the APDL’s innovation dynamics.

The relationship between INESC TEC and the APDL began more than 20 years ago. It all started in 1993 and the first protocol was signed in March 1996. The first major results were achieved in the years 1999/2000. This lasting partnership has led to excellent results for both organisations.

The innovation promoted in the Sector by the APDL was divided into six dynamics: 1) Porto node, 2) Waterways, 3) Extended Gateways, 4) Logistics Services Network (where the port is the main node), 5) Oceans (where the APDL has mainly been promoting initiatives of the Scientific and Technological Community), and 6) Internationalisation.

Considering that the port can only be efficient if it is able to promote the interoperability of its network, this is a complex task, as business relationships involve multiple companies and institutions.

Project SCOPe originated in the context of Dynamics 1, and it provides an instrument to increase the overall efficiency of the port (the JUP v0 - Janela Única Portuária), whose success strongly depended on the modelling of business processes.

This was the first national initiative to formalise business processes in ports. This project was a pioneer in modelling port processes using UML – Unified Modelling Language.

For this project, we adopted a business model that involved all the business players (institutions, companies in the Sector and the respective software houses). The SCOPe had a significant impact, as it made it possible to monitor the entire cycle of containers in the port, as well as the first process of interoperability with the tax authority, which increased the visibility of the Port of Leixões as an efficient and modern port.

JUP is already in place today in the port of Luanda, Angola, and in all the ports of Cape Verde and Cyprus. In addition, the company that worked with us (INDRA Portugal) played a fundamental role in the development of the Spanish national solution (Puertos del Estado) and the Tanger MED hub.

Also as part of Dynamics 1, project 3PORT led to a system to manage port processes based on georeferenced information. This project is in its final implementation stage and is being promoted internationally, as part of Dynamics 6.

This propensity for commercialising the assets resulting from the 3PORT in international markets is a consequence of the project’s vision. As part of the project, the company TRIEDE TTi developed a very innovative product targeting new paradigms.

Dynamics 2 focuses on innovation in waterways. It is materialised in project DIW 2020 (Douro’s Inland Waterway 2020), which was created to improve the navigability conditions in the Douro river, not only in terms of navigation per se, but also in terms of monitoring, control and safety. All this without disregarding the factors that lead to the of the economy of the Douro and the maximisation of freight traffic in this river. About 800 thousand passengers navigate the Douro every year, and so we have an enormous responsibility to guarantee their safety.

Dynamics 4 (Network of Logistics Services) naturally stood out because the Port of Leixões is key for the Motorways of the Sea, and therefore an important node in the RTE-T (Trans-European Networks for transport). This port thus had an obligation to become an innovative leader in terms of logistics in the European space. For that reason, we developed several projects together with INESC TEC and with companies and institutions in the Sector, which drew quite a lot of attention to Portugal’s competencies in the area. As someone has wisely stated, we may be a small country but we survive along with the great ones because we are constantly useful.

Other projects that need to be stressed are PortMoS, MIELE, WiderMoS and e-Impact.

Project PortMoS initially created critical mass on the problem of logistics services. The project took place between 2005 and 2007 and was supported by the APP (The Association of Ports in Portugal). The APDL and INESC TEC participated in parallel initiatives.

Project MIELE took place between 2010 and 2013 and brought the APDL and INESC TEC even closer together. In 2010, this project made it possible to formalise the concept of LSW - Logistic Single Window as a marketplace for interoperable business platforms. In this Marketplace, it is possible to sell door-to-door logistics services, resulting from collaborations between logistics service providers and users. Consequently, it was also possible to build a demonstrator for this concept, taking into consideration the expectations of shippers, especially exporting companies.

We are proud to say that we were pioneers in creating the first European holistic logistics model.

Following this project, between 2012 and 2015 we had project WiderMos, where we solved the technical issues of the demonstrator, thus confirming the technological viability of the concept first created as part of project MIELE. We implemented a prototype of reference that is seen today as the “embryo” (in the public domain) of other initiatives that will naturally follow.

So we wanted to continue these efforts, and for that reason, INESC TEC launched the startup company MITMYNID, led by some of its former employees, a company which features skills generated as a result of the fruitful relationship with the APDL.

This Dynamics 4 has produced extremely important assets which established the standards for the logistics of the future. We are all aware that this is fundamental and that we have an obligation to keep going.

Dynamics 3 (Extended Gateways) is not forgotten. It is strategic for the Port of Leixões to pursue a preferential relationship with logistics platforms, both in Portugal and in Spain, especially those that are connected to the port by train. Here it is important to mention project e-Impact, in collaboration with the startup since 2016, which will generate governance needs and afterwards scale up the results. Here we will resume a close collaboration with INESC TEC, under the terms provided in the addendum to the protocol.

Relatively to Dynamics 5 (Oceans), the APDL has mainly worked as an enabler of several INESC TEC initiatives, especially in the fields of underwater robotics and communications in oceans.

Following the results obtained as part of these collaborations, other than managing the assets resulting from the previous dynamics, it was necessary to work towards internationalisation (Dynamics 6), and this was the main focus of the addendum to the collaboration protocol signed recently at the 2016 Business2Sea.

We have already been working on this since 2014, especially focusing on knowledge transfer and commercialisation of the 3Port platform in Brazil and Angola, which are guaranteed anchors in their respective continents, and very important for Portuguese speaking countries.

This long and exemplary collaboration with INESC TEC has always been very positive. It is a very dynamic and multidisciplinary R&D institution, capable of responding to the complex challenges of the APDL, and supporting the design and implementation of very concrete solutions.

As a result of this collaboration, we are certainly very different from what we were 20 years ago. We have managed to persist in our strategy, creating value with sustainable logistics.