How much is idle time costing? Finding inefficiencies in crane and truck use

Every container terminal knows that time is money. Yet hidden inefficiencies in crane and truck operations continue to erode throughput, raise emissions and frustrate operators on the ground. The question is not whether these inefficiencies exist - but whether terminals can clearly see them and act fast enough to fix them.

Idle time is the silent killer of performance. A crane standing still or a truck waiting too long in the yard may not trigger an alert, but the impact accumulates quickly: missed slots, delayed vessels and extra fuel burned. Across hundreds of daily movements, even small inefficiencies multiply into significant operational drag.

Idle time adds up fast

Ronald van Gils, Senior BI Developer and Architect at All Your BI, sums it up brilliantly: “Idle time hides between systems - until you stitch the story together.”

The challenge to telling a story is not a lack of data. Terminals are generating vast quantities of it - from equipment logs to scheduling systems to maintenance trackers. But the data is often fragmented across tools, poorly integrated and difficult to interpret in real time.

As Ronald notes: “Without a consistent KPI framework, teams end up tracking performance in silos, rather than seeing the bigger picture.”

From silos to systems

All Your BI helps terminal operators pinpoint these hidden gaps. By integrating multiple data sources into a single platform, they surface insights that would otherwise stay buried - like why one crane consistently underperforms, or where peak-hour truck delays are avoidable with better yard coordination.

This clarity allows teams to shift from firefighting to fine-tuning. Instead of reacting to yesterday’s performance, operators can adjust scheduling, equipment allocation or maintenance planning on the fly. Over time, those optimizations add up. And the results are tangible: faster turnaround, more predictable throughput and lower operating costs.

But the real advantage lies in moving from anecdote to evidence. With dashboards built for operational use, teams stop relying on gut feel and start acting on facts. When performance dips, they know where, when and why - and they can do something about it.

From reaction to prevention

In logistics, if your truck turnaround is too long, your next delivery is already late. That principle drives the value of business intelligence in terminal operations: giving teams the power to spot issues early, fix them quickly and keep things moving.