----Portnet.com
 
 
 
08 April 2002

Press Release

PSA's PORTNET® Gains International Recognition

PSA Corporation has achieved yet another international accolade for its unique and innovative application of IT. The US-based Computerworld Honors Program, the "Academy Awards" for technology, has named PSA's wholly-owned subsidiary Portnet.com Pte Ltd as a Computerworld Honors Laureate.

The Computerworld Honors Program, a successor to the Computerworld Smithsonian Program, identifies organisations that have applied the use of information technology in original ways and to the benefit of society. The program aims to help the world's leading knowledge institutions document the global information technology revolution. It brings together one hundred of the foremost information technology companies from 10 industry categories globally. Past winners include Microsoft Corporation, Lucent Technologies, Ford Motor Company and FedEx Corporation.

Mr Daniel Morrow, Executive Director, Computerworld Honors Program, said, "The Computerworld Honors Program aims to help the world's leading universities, libraries and research institutions document the global information technology revolution. Each year, the program brings together a new group of Computerworld Honors Laureates - an extraordinary selection of leaders of the most important world-wide revolutions in history. We are proud to include the case study on PSA's world-class PORTNET® system into the Program's Archive. We would also like to thank PSA and Portnet.com for sharing this remarkable IT system with the rest of the world.

Mr Robert Yap, Executive Vice-President (Information Technology), PSA Corporation Ltd and Managing Director, Portnet.com Pte Ltd, said, "This is indeed a great achievement for PSA Corporation. We are truly honoured that our system, CITOS®, emerged as a Finalist for the highly acclaimed Smithsonian Award in year 2000. This year, we are very pleased that the PORTNET® system has been named as a Laureate recipient for the Computerworld Honors Program. In PSA, we recognise that Information Technology is a key enabler and a competitive edge for our business. We are purpose-driven in harnessing technology to make our port operations even more customer-focused, efficient and seamless. With Portnet.com spearheading PSA's e-business initiatives, we will continue to invest in IT to achieve greater productivity and service breakthroughs for the benefit of our customers."

The PORTNET® system is the world's first and only nation-wide, business-to-business (B2B) port and shipping e-community to provide integrated services to shipping lines, hauliers, freight forwarders, shippers and local government agencies in Singapore. It has been implemented since 1984 and encapsulates 18 years of IT and operational domain knowledge. The Internet-enabled PORTNET® system currently has 7,000 users generating nearly 70 million transactions per annum. With direct access to the PORTNET® system, users anywhere in the world can make speedier, more effective decisions and track their vessels and cargo on a 24-hour, paperless and real-time basis. The PORTNET® system seamlessly handles all electronic container data passing through PSA, enabling it to manage the world's largest container volume in a single location - 15.52 million Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) of containers in Singapore.

BACKGROUND
PSA Corporation's Portnet.com Pte Ltd was launched on 8 May 2000 to create more value through e-commerce solutions for the shipping community. It builds on PSA Corporation's flagship PORTNET® system and is supported by Sun Microsystems' platforms. Portnet.com's operations are supported by more than 200 Sun servers and SunSpectrum services. Its platform is based on the J2EE framework, Enterprise JavaBeans, and the iPlanet solutions suite. Portnet.com aims to meet the challenges of the global e-business market by initiating efforts to implement systems in ports around the world, such as Aden, Brunei, China, India, Japan, , USA, Italy, Portugal and Korea. For more information, please visit http://www.portnet.com

PSA Corporation operates the world's largest container transhipment hub in Singapore. It provides every shipper an unrivalled choice of 250 shipping lines with connections to 600 ports in 123 countries. Besides its operations in Singapore, the PSA Group participates in 13 port projects in eight countries around the world in Belgium, Brunei, China, India, Italy, Korea, Portugal and Yemen. For more information, please visit http://www.internationalpsa.com/

INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY AWARDS ACHIEVED BY PSA

Major awards:

2001 Winner of 'Innovative Organisation of the Year' at the inaugural Singapore Innovation Award 2001.

Winner of CIO (Asean & Hong Kong) Award 2001.

Winner of the inaugural "Innovation in Maritime E-Commerce" award, at the 13th Seatrade Awards for "PORTNET®".

2000 Computerworld Smithsonian Finalist 2000 for "Computer Integrated Terminal Operations System" (CITOS®).

1999 Award for Innovation at the 11th Seatrade Awards (conferred by the Seatrade Organisation, United Kingdom) for "Flow-Through Container Gate System",
a module of CITOS®.

1994 Salzberg Concept Memorial Medallion Award (by Syracuse University in New York) in recognition of excellence in port operations and efforts in pioneering ideas, practices and concepts in transportation and distribution.

1989 Innovative Application Award [from the American Association for Artificial Intelligence (Stanford University)] for Ship Planning Expert System (SPS90), a module of CITOS®.

Founded in 1988 / 1989, the Computerworld Honors Program searches for and recognises individuals who have demonstrated vision and leadership as they strive to use information technology in innovative ways. Each year, members of the Honors Program Chairman's Committee identify organisations whose use of information technology has been especially noteworthy for the originality of its conception, the breadth of its vision, and the significance of its benefit to society. In June 2002, five Laureates from each of the ten fields of human endeavour deemed most outstanding by a panel of judges will be given special recognition as World-wide Finalists. Finally, one World-wide Finalist from each field will be selected for a 21st Century Achievement Award. For more information, please visit http://www.cwheroes.org/

Other news articles on this story:

Channel NewsAsia, 10.30pm, 5 Apr 2002

PSA aims to ship its port technology worldwide

Straits Times, Pg S9, 6 Apr 2002

S'pore should help shipping lines to cut costs, says PwC

Lianhe Zaobao, Pg 18, 6 Apr 2002

PSA's Portnet named Computerworld Honors Laureate

Bloomberg Business News, 8 Apr 2002

PSA's Portnet recognized by Computerworld Honors Program