DESPITE abstaining from food and water during the Holy Ramadan, the operations team at Westport in Port Klang has shown that nothing deters it from maintaining productivity at top levels.

This national gateway, which has established itself as one of the top terminals in the region in terms of productivity and speed, has once again proven its ability to meet more than the industry’s expectation regardless of conditions.

The workers of the port have been very busy keeping the port abuzz throughout the fasting month and the recent festive season. Coincidentally, the port’s fastest move ever has also been achieved during this month.

Quay crane operator Ismail Abdul Rahman, who became the port’s hero on October 19 2005, displayed such great skills to chart the port’s fastest move ever with an amazing 40 moves per hour.

Although not in his top form as he was fasting, the Westport employee, with nine years experience, was ever ready to show off his deftness in cargo-handling.

Besides Ismail, the entire group had performed extremely well showcasing the port’s strength.

“We performed 200 moves per hour across the vessel, with average productivity of 35 moves per hour and 38 moves per hour on the long cranes,” said the group vessel operating manager.

Great team spirit was also seen at the port’s gate operations which managed to keep up with the escalating ship-to-shore productivity level.

The gate operations team succeeded in turning around the haulier in as fast as 14 minutes.The Westport team which is known for creating new records and standards managed this feat swiftly and charted another milestone achievement for the port.

Head of Westport Container Operation, N. Kumar, said, “This achievement proves that with good team effort, meticulous planning and a focused mind, we can overcome any obstacles and achieve our objective.”Westport currently maintains a steady average productivity rate of 35 moves per hour.

Ensuring that the operations team is all set to meet the productivity targets, the port has successfully introduced a very effective incentive scheme and coupled with great team spirit appears to be the driving force of the port in sustaining its fast port standards. Every record that is achieved at Westport is solely the pride of the staff.

Strengthening its position as a regional shipping hub with continuous soaring of throughput at its container terminal, the port looks forward to end the year with commendable results.

The growth and achievements of this port is mainly attributed to the tenacity of the workers and its capability in challenging the norm to bring forth improvements in performance and to deliver world-class service to its customers in every vessel call.

The NST, 7.11.2005