Operators who override an electrical safety interlock because it slows them down leave themselves with no safety system at all, Antonio Ledesma of ESL Power Systems told a packed Tech TOC session on terminal safety at TOC Americas 2026 in Cartagena. Three vendors covering electrical, sensor and fire protection agreed that overrides, not cost, are the real threat to safe operations.
Antonio Ledesma, ESL Power Systems
Antonio Ledesma, Business Development, Marketing and Sales at ESL Power Systems, said ports still treat electrical risk the way people treat a household plug, without thinking, even though terminal equipment can run at 480 volts against the 110–250 volts found in most homes. ESL Power Systems designs outlets that require a mechanical movement to de-energise before an operator can unplug them, and trips the breaker if someone pulls a plug without doing so, he said. He also urged terminals to fit ground fault detection on every rack or bay, not just every outlet, pointing to mining as an industry that already does this well. Ledesma said customers should judge vendors on their ability to support a system over its life, not on the lowest quote. “If they’re bypassing the safety system by doing that, that safety system doesn’t work at all,” he said.
Joerg Spiegelhalter, SICK AG
Joerg Spiegelhalter, Global Industry Manager at SICK AG, said the same logic applies to sensor-based protection: a boom anti-collision system on a ship-to-shore crane is only as good as its installation, and SICK AG has seen operators turn scanners towards the sky after a misalignment left them unhappy with the system’s performance. Indoor logistics automated this kind of safety decades ago without controversy, he said, and outdoor terminal operations are now catching up for the same reasons of cost and safety. “Better safety, less downtime, higher equipment availability, higher productivity, more throughput, greater profitability,” he said, summarising the case for investing in automated safety systems.
Fredrik Rönnquist, Fogmaker
Fredrik Rönnquist, Fogmaker’s Regional Manager for Southeast Asia, said the company protects engine bays and electrical cabinets on equipment from road trucks to rubber-tyred gantry cranes, following the Swedish fire standard where no local code exists because, he said, it is one of the highest in the world. Fogmaker will turn down work rather than build a system it does not believe in to save cost, Rönnquist said, and prefers to act as a consultancy with ports and machine manufacturers from the design stage. “The best accident you can have is the one that never occurs,” he said, arguing that terminals should treat safety spending as an investment rather than a cost.
Harry Palmer, TT Club
Harry Palmer, Risk Assessment Manager at TT Club, moderating the session, said terminals often only take safety seriously after a fatality, and argued they should think instead about what it would mean to tell a crane driver’s family he was not coming home. He pointed to cold chain failures, such as a shipment of blood plasma or high-grade tuna breaking temperature for hours, as proof that incidents carry commercial as well as human costs. Closing the session, Palmer said the panel had converged on one point. “Safety and efficiency are not independent of each other,” he said. “They can go together, and there will always be a return on investment on safety equipment because there’s nothing more painful for your operation or your bottom line than an incident.”