Port & supply-chain consulting · Rönneburg, Hamburg
We take a container from the moment its berth window opens to the moment it is unloaded inland, and we take the delay out of it — one measured handover at a time.
What we are
Hafenlogik was founded in 2013 by two people who had spent their working lives on the operational side of the Port of Hamburg — one in terminal planning, one in customs and forwarding. We are still small on purpose. Every engagement is run by a partner, on site, with access to the data rather than to a summary of it.
We do not sell software, we do not take commission from carriers or forwarders, and we do not resell a methodology. What we sell is a fortnight or two of undivided attention on a bottleneck you already suspect, and a written answer you can act on.
No carrier, terminal or software vendor pays us a referral fee. Our only revenue is the client fee on the invoice.
We measure gate moves, crane cycles, dwell times and reefer plug occupancy on your own systems. Nothing in our reports is an industry benchmark standing in for your data.
Three of our four standard engagements are fixed price. You know what the answer costs before we start looking for it.
Since 2013
Engagements completed
TEU per year under review, aggregate
Median reduction in truck turnaround time
Demurrage & detention avoided, cumulative
Aggregate figures across all engagements since 2013, anonymised. Volumes are stated as bands because our clients' throughput is commercially sensitive and, in most cases, contractually confidential.
Practice areas
Most of the delay in a container's journey is created at four handovers. We work on all four, and we are honest about which one your problem actually sits in.
Berth windows, crane productivity, yard density, gate moves.
We rebuild the picture of a terminal day from your TOS exports: berth window adherence, quay crane moves per hour by shift and by crane, yard density by block, and the gate curve hour by hour. The bottleneck is usually not where the loudest complaint is.
ATLAS declarations, AEO status, transit and clearance flow.
Declaration quality, ATLAS message flow, transit procedures, and the internal controls an AEO authorisation actually requires. We map where a shipment waits for paper rather than for a truck, and rewrite the process so the paper is ready first.
Reefer plug capacity, temperature integrity, risk mapping.
Reefer plug occupancy against arrival peaks, pre-trip inspection discipline, temperature excursion recording, and the handover points where a chain most often breaks: quay to yard, yard to truck, truck to cold store.
Train slots, wagon supply, hinterland shuttles.
Where the terminal's yard plan and the rail operator's slot plan disagree. Train handling times, wagon supply reliability, shuttle round-trip times to the hinterland hubs, and the shunting time nobody counted.
How an engagement runs
This is the same sequence for a €6,200 risk map and a €14,000 throughput audit. Only the depth changes.
Step 1 of 5 · 45 minutes, no fee
You describe the symptom. We tell you which of the four practice areas it most likely belongs to, roughly what it will cost to find out, and — often enough — that you do not need us.
Track record
Our clients are terminal operators, forwarders, cold-chain logistics providers and rail operators in the North Range. Their throughput is commercially sensitive, so we publish volume as bands and never name a client. Every figure below is a measured before-and-after from a completed engagement.
| Sector | Annual volume band | Scope | Measured result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Container terminal operator | 1–2 m TEU / year | Gate and yard interface | Truck turnaround time down 21 minutes at peak hour |
| Freight forwarder, sea-air | 40–60 k declarations / year | ATLAS declaration flow | Declaration rework down from 11% to 4% |
| Cold-chain logistics provider | 8–12 k reefer units / year | Reefer plug capacity plan | Temperature excursions during handover down 63% |
| Rail operator, hinterland shuttle | 600–900 trains / year | Slot and wagon supply | Train handling time down 34 minutes per call |
Bands, not exact volumes. We will name no client, confirm no client, and deny no client. If you need a reference, ask us in the scoping call and we will ask a past client whether they are willing to speak to you.
Who we work with
We do not publish client logos. Most of our contracts forbid it, and the ones that do not, we still would not. Below is the mix of our engagements by client type since 2013.
Terminal operators
34% of engagements
Freight forwarders
23% of engagements
Cold-chain providers
17% of engagements
Rail operators
13% of engagements
Industrial shippers
8% of engagements
Port bodies
5% of engagements
The board in the footer
Every page of this site ends with an arrival board. It is a demonstration built from a fixed sample dataset — not a live AIS feed — and it shows the one view we build for every terminal and forwarding client: planned berth window against forecast arrival, with the deviation in minutes. When you can see the deviation, you can plan the gate, the yard and the truck slots around it. When you cannot, you buy demurrage.
Before you call
Yes. Most of our work is in the North Range — Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Wilhelmshaven, Rotterdam and Antwerp — and we have run engagements in Gdańsk and Koper. Travel outside Hamburg is billed at cost and stated in the proposal.
Yes, and we will normally sign yours rather than ask you to sign ours. We work with raw operational data; the confidentiality has to be settled before the data room opens, not after.
We advise, we design the intervention, and we stay for the pilot. We do not staff your operation permanently and we do not project-manage your IT rollout. Where implementation needs hands we say so and step back.
No. If a TOS module or a slot-booking system is the right answer, we say so and name the options we know, and we take nothing from whoever you choose.
It happens, and we say so in writing. A throughput audit that concludes your terminal is running close to its structural limit is a useful answer — it moves the conversation to capital investment instead of to another improvement programme. The fee is the same.
Forty-five minutes, no fee, no deck. Tell us the symptom. We will tell you where it probably sits and what it would cost to be sure.
