Labuan Port is located in east Malaysia on an island about 10 kilometres off Borneoʼs northwest coast in the South China Sea about 118 kilometres southwest of the Kota Kinabalu Port. The town of Labuan is part of the urban area of Victoria, the islandʼs biggest city. The sheltered deep-water harbour at Labuan Port is an important transhipment point for Brunei, northern Sarawak, and western Sabah.
In 1990, the Malaysian government decided to turn Labuan Island into an offshore financial centre and a new tourist destination. The government has been specially committed to the objective of turning Labuan into a full-fledged and premier international financial centre. One element of this policy was to privatise the management of Labuan Port, and in 1998 the government of Malaysia handed over the management of the stores and the container yard of Labuan Port to a local vendor: DPML Corporation Berhad.
Since then, Labuan Port has been developed into a duty-free port with relaxed customs procedures. The port management has focused upon specialised services and equipment for efficient cargo handling. As a result, there is normally no waiting time for berthing and cargo discharging at the port, and the portʼs fees are among the lowest in Malaysia.
The port receives vessels carrying containers, bulk, and general cargoes. The major products produced and exported from Labuan Port are oil, gas and petroleum. It has a 244m jetty with alongside depth of 8.5m and can accommodate vessels up to 16,000 Deadweight Tonnage (DWT). Labuan Portʼs berths have a total length of 355.6m with alongside depths of 4.6m and 10m. The New Liberty Wharf can accommodate vessels up to 16,000 DWT.
Labuan Port has about 15,600 square meters available in open storage, two warehouses and a container yard. Additionally, a 10,000 square meter yard and several warehouses are available outside the port. Overall, Labuan Port has the capacity to handle 100,000 Twenty-foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) of containerised cargo per year.
The Malaysian parliament decided to put an end to the sub-contracting of Labuan port by the original contractor DPML to LLPM, issuing a decree stating that DPML should terminate LLPMʼs subcontracting and manage the port on its own. The new management needed an instant solution to take care of everyday documentation and slowly upgrade the application into a fully integrated PORT OPERATIONS & MANAGEMENT SYSTEM using advanced Information Communication Technology (ICTs)
First, NETS designed and developed a simple desktop-based data management module to handle all the documents required for daily operation of the port. The application was implemented as a standalone module with scope for future migration of data into the integrated port software. This was done within 15 days and immediate take over was possible. Later the case was properly studied and plans where made for implementing a fully integrated Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) software application based on NETS existing modules, but customized to meet DPML specific needs. The final application handles container management, cargo management, financial management, stowage and moving, inland transportation, tariff management, and resource allocation management.
This application (NETS Port & Terminal) can be universally implemented in any port. It has been thoroughly designed and developed to manage the basic operational needs of ports and to handle SOA-based Enterprise Resource Management (ERP).