CONFERENCE RECAP: TERMINALS
Mihic highlighted the type of activities required to meet the needs of customers today.
revolution created a spin-off in mari- time trade,” he explains. • First Industrial Revolution (late 18th century): The steam engine led to the steamship. • Second (mid-19th century): The assembly line gave rise to modern supply chains and mass logistics. • Third (1968): The invention of the programmable logic controller (PLC) at General Motors enabled automation — technology still used in cranes today. • Fourth (now): The rise of cyber- physical systems and IoT (Internet of Things) devices — machines that communicate, learn, and optimize autonomously. “These devices — sensors, vehicles, automated cranes — will soon outnum- ber humans,” Mihic says. “By 2025, there will be three times more IoT devices than smartphones or comput- ers. By 2050, over 100 billion. That’s what’s driving the next revolution.” For ports, that means the shift from automated to autonomous sys- tems — machines that make real-time
operational decisions without human intervention. “It’s not science fiction,” he says. “It’s already happening in the automotive and transportation industries. Our sec- tor will be the next spin-off, just like it was with steam and steel before.” The role of Artificial Intelligence Mihic is refreshingly pragmatic about AI. “Yes, everyone talks about it,” he says, “but AI isn’t new. It’s been around for decades. What’s changed is accessibility — ChatGPT and others democratized it overnight.” Rather than fear it, he argues, ports should embrace AI as a tool for waste elimina- tion — reducing idle time, optimizing routes, predicting maintenance, and managing energy consumption. “Every previous revolution created more jobs, not fewer,” he reminds the audience. “When the first assem- bly lines appeared, people feared unemployment. But it created whole new industries. The same happened with computers. The fourth revolution will do the same.”
He envisions AI coordinating oper- ations across thousands of assets and terminals worldwide, analyzing pat- terns in vessel arrivals, crane produc- tivity, truck flows, and cargo dwell times. “Imagine a system that learns from every lift, every move, and opti- mizes the next one instantly. That’s where we’re heading.” From global enterprise to data- driven ecosystem In the early 2000s, Mihic explains, multinational companies pursued “off- shoring” and “centralization”. They optimized labor and process flows through methodologies like Lean and Six Sigma. “But now the game has changed,” he says. “The next phase is connecting all those dots — linking every machine, sensor, and process through data. When you can process that data, apply AI, and feed it back into operations, you eliminate waste. You make the sys- tem self-learning.” That transformation, he says, won’t just make ports faster — it will make
32 — PACIFIC PORTS — October/November 2025
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