Interview with Harrison Nguyen, Business Development Manager at RBS

• Since our last interview in July 2025, a few months have passed. What significant developments or innovations has RBS introduced since then, and how have they impacted the company’s services and products?

Ιt’s been a pretty big year for us since July 2025. We’ve had quite a few new modules and new features that have come up within our system. Most notably, is the newest version of our AVP (automatic vessel planning).

So, with our new high precision plannings, we’re able to use the latest technology to provide automated ways to do planning, and that is a really big jump in the industry, and a really big task that has been tackled for many years now, but has never really been perfected until now.

With AVP and our improved yard planning and those kinds of modules, we’re really seeing a big push and a big improvement in efficiencies, but also in just usability.

So, there’s a variety of ways in which this new system and new features has been able to impact the customers, and the stakeholders of specific terminals as well.

I would also say on the digital twin side, we’ve also been some big improvements on our TOPX Intelligent 3D and we’re entering some pretty exciting phases with a few customers at the moment.

We’re really looking forward to how that’s going to take off in the next few months and the year as well.

• Building on these recent developments, how do you decide which new features or TOPS modules to develop first? What market trends or client needs influence these decisions?

First and foremost, the customer drives a lot of discussion when it comes to new features, and we’re very much in tune and connected to a lot of our customers.

So, for example, I go to a lot of our customer terminals, to a lot of the conferences and meet clients and people actually at the terminal, and that’s really one source of information, where we are able to make decisions and see where these new features are should or how they will be developed.

With that, it’s really not just one customer. We try to take in the opinions of many global customers as well, because we are quite a global business in parts of Europe, Asia, Africa.

So, taking into account all of the different opinions to find out what would be the best industry standard way of doing it.

One way in which we really look at developing new features and modules, but I would also say just within the team itself, we are always keeping an eye on the current market trends and technologies.

While it is really important to stay in tune with what’s happening within the terminal operating market, it’s also important to stay in touch with what’s happening in technology in general and we see, with the trends in AI, trends in agent learning etc, we try to apply that back into the terminal operating space.

It’s a combination of listening to customers, hearing what’s inside the market trends, but also market in terms of the technology market as a whole.

All those things really drive our decisions on how we create new features and new modules.

• RBS works closely with clients to shape solutions. Can you share a recent example of a client collaboration that led to a new feature or improvement in TOPS?

I previously mentioned AVP, which is something we recently developed in the last year or so. We actually were working very closely with some of our customer clients in Lithuania – called the Klaipedos Smelte Terminal. They were really one of the drivers of that feature and how to really improve and make the terminal ready and usable.

We shared our ideas and our concepts on how to create and manage that solution, but they shared the ideas on how they would like a terminal to use that solution. It’s a combination of how does the developers see the problem from a technical perspective and how does the terminal see the problem from an operational perspective.

So, we combine those two ideas, along with some opinions from other terminals – but Klaipedos Smelte is one of the main drivers there – and we are able to create a really comprehensive and really useful solution, that the terminals are actually able to put in production and actually see benefits from.

And talking about the benefits, an example they gave was before they were planning a 3000-move vessel in about 10 hours. Now they can do the same in about 1 minute.

They take about 15 to 20 minutes to check it and make sure everything’s right. But even 10 hours to 15 to 20 minutes – that is a massive saving for their terminal.

That reduces your labor costs, meaning energy cost, it reduces everything and that brings on their customer satisfaction as well for them to take across their shipping line and their stakeholders.

This process has really lot of positive effects and benefits for the terminal, and this is an example that how we use and talk to customers, to basically create the best possible system. With Smelte we can improve and talk about every single one of their features, as we go ahead and we do the same with all of our customers.

• The company operates in different regions with diverse operational practices. What challenges do you face in adapting your solutions to meet local requirements?

Every single terminal has their own ideas on how to do things. They have their own legislation, their own customs, etc. It creates quite a topic to how do we manage and address all those different regions and operational practices.

I would say a few main ways – number one is we have to program the flexibility and configurability directly into the system. So one way in which we do that, is instead of having a fixed system that just does it one way, we are able to let the customer choose and create their own parameters and their own ways, in which they do it inside the system. So, they can configure their own codes.

They can configure their own ways in which they operate certain aspects that is inherently done in the system. So, we can try to meet as many different operational practices as possible.

Number 2, We have local partners in Asia, for example in Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, and in other parts of the world such as in Europe and Germany. They are more in tune with what’s done locally and they know the legislation, the customs, the ideas in which that local area is able to operate, and from there they help us to input that into the system.

Designing configurable, getting the local partners to put their inputs and opinions, and then the third point would be actually just talking to the customer directly.

So, I mentioned before we are always talking to costumers in terminal, especially even from the development level, and that plays into this question as well.With the ability to talk to all these stakeholders, we can create the best possible way and create a flexibility within our system, so we can meet all these operational practices.

• Sustainability is becoming increasingly important for terminals. How can RBS TOPS help clients operate more efficiently while reducing their environmental impact?

CO2 emissions, sustainability and green ports, have been a very prominent topic in the last few years. From the RBS TOPS perspective, there are two ways.

Firstly, is not just reducing time, but increasing efficiency by reducing the amount of time spent on certain actions, by reducing things like idle time, like unladen travel, rehandling, and unproductive moves. Those kinds of areas inherently lower emissions, because if you can move things around faster and quicker, you use less fuel and less resources to move them, and therefore that inherently reduces CO2.

So, there’s a lot of aspects in which that’s done. Things like better planning and optimizing allocation. All those things play into lowering CO2 emissions.

The second way in which we help in this area is monitoring. There’s a lot of tools within our systems, especially TOPX Intelligent 3D, which is our newer system, which helps the terminal to monitor and understand the environmental impact.

Things like measuring their emissions, measuring their fuel usage, measuring CO2 emissions, and measuring things like electrification – this possible in the newer version of our systems and this helps terminals to meet their CO2 and green-port initiatives, as well as be ready for the future.

• Training and adoption can be challenging with a complex TOS. How does RBS ensure client teams quickly gain confidence and maximize the value of TOPS?

That’s a great question. Implementations aren’t just about the system. The system where positive is great, but the thing is, how do we get the people to use the system.

First and foremost, we have the expertise within the team. So, the team itself has done many implementations. We operate about 50 terminals around the world now. Those dozens of terminals given us a lot of experience in how to train and how to share that knowledge with the terminals.

Secondly, we have structured it very well now. Because of all our experience, we’ve been able to create the programs, the documentation, and the systems to help do this training properly.

Along with that, the partners are able to help out a lot, and they’re part of that system, to really bring across effective training that can involve things, like doing things in the local language, like in Vietnamese or German or Thai, etc. Also translating documents and the system to the local language. That also helps with the training, because the more the users can understand, the more they are able to use and be trained properly.

The last thing I want to mention about that is that, even after we train them and give them the system, we have a 24/7 system that can support the customers.

We have a hotline, we have a ticketing tool, we have various means of communication, so that the customer is always supported.

It’s not just about “here’s the system, there you go”. It’s about OK, let us train you in the system and let us continually help you with how to use the system properly.

That’s how the terminals get the maximum benefit out of the TOS, and how they are constantly able to access our resources and access our knowledge to improve the operation.

• Looking ahead to the next 3–5 years, what do you see as the biggest opportunities for RBS to grow in the global terminal market?

There are lots of opportunities – the world is becoming a very interesting place with a lot of geopolitical things going on, and a lot of technological things going on. I would see a few areas in which there’s opportunity.

Firstly the digitalization of terminals. Digital journeys have become a very prominent thing throughout the last few years, and the RBS is positioned to target that trend with our experience, and our innovations in new technologies, like TOPX Intelligent 3D and AVP.

We are at the center of the digitalization automation trend.

Secondly, is that we are expanding our own product line to be beyond container terminals. We want to move into generalized cargo as well. That’s something we’re working on this year. We will include break bulk, Liquid bulk, Ro-Ro, as well.

Another area is inland and intermodal terminals, where we see that there’s been a trend towards that recently, given that shipping is becoming more expensive, it’s becoming more dangerous in some parts of the world, with some of the recent activities that’s been going on. So, a shift towards rail terminals that can save costs and save time has really
been a way to go, with some operations logistically.

Because of that we have a system that’s perfectly suited for rail and intermodal terminals and had lot of success in the last few years. We’ve done implementations in Asia, in Australia and Europe recently.We see a big trend there, and overall, we just have a really good product map now, that is able to target so many different types of terminals.

So to recap, I would say automation digitalization is number one. Number two is expanding beyond just container terminals. Number three is a focus on intermodal terminals, and four is just a comprehensive product solution. A lot of opportunities and points there, but we see a possibility in the next 3-5 years for an exciting amount of growth.

• Based on your experience in business development at RBS, what advice would you give to companies considering upgrading their terminal systems?

I would say the number one thing when it comes to upgrading terminal systems, TOS, digital twin, etc.is thinking long term.

A lot of these systems they’re not just something you would try and put in for a month or a year. A lot of these systems are 10 years plus, and because of that, the management and the operation team can’t look at things at just a very simple ROI and a short-term ROI. They must think a lot longer term.

They must think about what the impact of the operations will be, the impact on the stakeholders, the impact to the overall landscape, and that is important because when you’re evaluating the system, it gives you a different perspective on how to evaluate.

You really have to evaluate from what the vendor can do, what can the vendor go and do in the future, and how is that going to match up with our goals. With RBS, we really try to convey a lot of those ideas through showing what we have to innovate, what is coming next, what we have currently and what we can do with all our network and all of our technologies.

So, thinking long term is the main point.

The second point is about making sure the people are good as well. It’s about the connection between the system vendors such as RBS and the customer.

We talk to the customer, we talk with them constantly and that’s really important because at the end of the day, it’s not just a system we give to you, it’s a system that you will use and we will improve together with you, and it’s looking beyond just what are the actual features technically, but it’s also looking at how will the vendor support you, how will you communicate with the vendor, how responsive they are, and how they can support you with the operational and technology.

And that really links into thinking long term as well, because that really plays a part in how the system is used, and how you can improve overall operations.

So, those are the two main points. Think long term and prioritize the partnership more than just a system by itself.

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