Most container terminals can tell you their labor cost per move, crane productivity, and vessel turnaround time. What they struggle to quantify is the financial drag caused by manual terminal operations because those costs rarely show up as a single, obvious line item on the P&L. Instead, terminal operations inefficiencies are spread thinly across overtime budgets, missed berthing windows, idle equipment, extended dwell times, and lost throughput opportunities. Each one looks manageable in isolation. Together, they quietly erode margins. Manual port operations persist not because they are efficient, but because they are familiar. Paper-based planning, spreadsheet-driven yard management, radio-dispatched equipment,
