Step II is a basic system for managing and control container terminals wherever they are. This product can be considered as a core – the database which is used by other applications of the product range. All terminal, custom and vessel operations can be processed with its help. Moreover, the processed data will be stored in the database after encoding. How simple the database is in use – the question to be considered in every case. Here the information afterwards can be viewed, for example in chronological order. The only thing required to find the information about a particular vessel, which have called at the bay, or characteristics of container, embarked to that vessel, is to know, for example, the time when the vessel entered the port. And then all related information will be easy to find.
Ergonomic specifications allow adjusting the programme online, so that it would better correspond to the user’s needs. Resizeability, adjustability and multilanguage environment support allows to run this software almost on every computer. Development of similar software would cause significant costs for ones business. But Step II was developed on SQL basis, so that it makes the technology itself easier and therefore decreases the running costs. N-tier architecture provides high performance. The programme itself manages information to organize the process of control. All the information about terminal can be entered to ease the organization – referring operation ships (embarking, disembarking, ship’s arriving time etc), containers (IMO, cargo type, temperature, outline, bill of load, DDT, etc.), terminal (gate in and gate out container checking, managing all the passages and access control, etc.), ports (to be visited by vessels en route). Special characteristics can be added to the product information, such as to damaged or rotten during transportation goods. Gates control function concerns all the admittances, which were issued to a number of people who enter or leave the territory.

This software was developed for small and medium size terminals, but there will be no difficulties with programme’s update, control or monitoring of remote clients, as it is possible to do it from the central mainframe, instead of doing it on every single machine. Regarding to its interface it is worth mentioning that the programme uses Multi-Document Interface, which allows opening as much documents, as it is possible with current computer’s resources. The software is based on the industrial standard XML, therefore reports are getting in the HTML format and can be easily transformed into the XLS table (Microsoft© Excel™ format), into text document and of course sent by e-mail.