Solent Stevedores couldn’t buy the terminal system it needed to operate. Fargo built it with them, creating a technology foundation that has continued to evolve as the business has grown and diversified.
Solent Stevedores is a multi-award-winning private specialist port operator working across the UK, Channel Islands and Singapore.
The relationship with Fargo began with a specific operational challenge at London Gateway: maintenance and repair.
Solent’s team was manually entering container repair estimates into individual shipping-line systems. It was labour-intensive, created opportunities for human error and meant a full survey and estimate could take hours to reach the shipping line.
Solent looked for an off-the-shelf solution to manage its facilities and automate the maintenance and repair (M&R) process. However, nothing met the operational requirements at a price that made sense.
So Fargo and Solent built something different.
Starting With the Operation
Working closely with Solent’s team, Fargo developed TERM around the way the operation actually worked.
M&R, Yard, Gate and Storage were built together from the outset, creating the operational foundation needed to manage the container from arrival through inspection, storage and onward movement.
At the point of inspection, teams can now use a tablet to record damage, take photographs and select the appropriate repair codes. Estimates are communicated directly into shipping-line processes.
Fargo also developed a unique native integration with Hapag-Lloyd’s own M&R coding system, something Solent had been unable to find elsewhere.
The impact was immediate: a full survey and repair estimate that could previously take hours could now reach the shipping line in minutes.
Information was captured more consistently, manual administration reduced and the intuitive process made it easier to bring new M&R employees into the operation.
But the system didn’t stop evolving there.
Growing into the Backbone
As Solent’s operation changed, new capabilities were added. Rail followed. Then vehicle booking.
Rather than introducing a new system for each new requirement, Solent continued working with Fargo, building on the same underlying operational platform.
That became particularly important when Solent invested £17.5m with Associated British Ports to transform its Southampton operation into an 18-acre facility combining intermodal rail, laden and empty container handling, storage, maintenance and repair.
The redevelopment didn’t just increase capacity. It changed how people worked.
Previously, trucks passed directly by the operational office. Drivers and the office team could speak through the window and physically exchange the paperwork needed to keep jobs moving. The new facility changed that. The office was now at the other end of the depot from the drivers.
A process that had worked because people were physically next to each other suddenly didn’t.
As the platform expanded, capabilities were built into the same operational system rather than added as loosely connected applications. Rail, yard, VBS, bookings and EDI work together, giving teams access to the same live operational information. Customer and haulier self-service reduces administration, while dashboards, reporting and mobile tools put current information into the hands of the people who need it; from management teams to drivers working across the terminal.
Replacing the Window with Information
For shunt movements between the terminal and dock, Fargo developed a dedicated Shunts workflow.
As Solent’s Southampton operation expanded, that connectivity became increasingly important. Drivers who had previously been able to collect paperwork directly from the office were now operating at the other end of a much larger site. Fargo introduced a Shunts workflow using cab-mounted tablets, allowing the office to allocate work and provide drivers with the information and documentation they need without relying on paper or physical proximity.
Drivers now have the information they need on cab-mounted tablets. The office team can allocate the next job remotely and attach essential documentation, including VBS and hazardous goods forms.
Instead of drivers travelling back to an office or relying on pieces of paper passing between teams, the information moves with the job. It reduces paper handling, gives drivers better access to the information they need and creates a clearer digital record of what has happened.
The same principle has been applied to rail, with Fargo TERM functionality developed to digitise the recording of stack contents, plan containers onto trains and allow container-handler drivers to record boxes as they are loaded and unloaded.
Improving the Flow Through The Terminal
Vehicle booking has become another part of that evolution.
Solent’s VBS has delivered an 88% efficiency increase and 47% uplift in throughput, while reducing peak wait times from four hours to 30 minutes and supporting more than 200 hauliers each month.
Within Fargo TERM, vehicle booking is part of the wider terminal operation rather than a separate process. Booking information is embedded into the operational view of the yard, including a 3D viewer, giving teams greater context around what’s coming into the terminal and what needs to happen next.
And that integration lays the foundation for further optimisation as the solution continues to develop.
Today, the same underlying system supports two distinct Solent operations at Southampton and London Gateway, adapting to different workflows while bringing operational information together within one platform.
Built for What Comes Next
One year after the Southampton expansion, Solent reported a 23% increase in rail moves, 122% increase in lifts and 125% increase in containers handled, with capacity to handle up to 180,000 containers a year.
As the operation has grown and diversified, Fargo TERM has evolved from solving one specific operational challenge into technology Solent regards as business critical.
The relationship has evolved too.
Fargo isn’t simply a software supplier. The Fargo team effectively operates as an extension of Solent’s own IT capability; people who understand the operation, can respond when requirements change and continue developing the technology around the business.
“Our operation has changed significantly over the years, and we need technology that can evolve with us. Fargo has become an integral part of how we run the business, supporting different operations across our sites while continuing to adapt as we grow and diversify. When we need something changed, we talk to the people who build it and we get an answer. That counts for a lot in an operation that doesn’t stop.”
Mark Hooper, Director of Rail & Containers, Solent Stevedores
For Solent, Fargo TERM has evolved from solving a maintenance and repair problem into an operating system at the heart of the terminal operation connecting the processes and information needed to keep increasingly diverse operations moving.
The result: not another system around the edges of the operation, but technology embedded at its core. An intermodal operating system built specifically for intermodal operations and challenges, able to evolve with them.