As one of New Zealand’s major hubs for containerized and multi-cargo operations, the Port of Auckland serves as a critical point of trade and innovation in the region. While the Port of Auckland is recognized for its ongoing innovation, the Fergusson Terminal was preparing for its next leap forward. After ten years of dedicated service with N4 2.6, the team saw an exciting opportunity to embrace new technology, enhance efficiency, and scale to meet growing trade demands.
In partnership with Kaleris, the Port of Auckland launched a major upgrade at Fergusson Terminal, transitioning to the advanced N4 4.0 system. To learn more about this digital transformation journey, we sat down with Gary Elmes, General Manager Digital, who led the project, to discuss the goals, challenges, lessons, and future vision for the port.
- Can you describe the key reasons behind the decision to upgrade from N4 2.6 to N4 4.0 at Fergusson Terminal?
- Honestly, we were on a version that was over ten years old, costing us a lot to have it supported, missing a decade’s worth of improvements, and holding us back. The upgrade wasn’t just a “nice to have”, it was essential to our operations being reliable, secure, and future-ready to meet our customer and industry demands.
- What performance or business goals were you hoping to address with this major upgrade?
- A stable, modern platform that could support faster, smarter, and more resilient operations. That meant better system stability, improved integration capability, enhanced user experience, and the ability to adopt future N4 features quickly. From a business perspective, it was also about reducing operational risk and ensuring our technology stack could keep up with the scale and complexity of New Zealand’s largest import terminal.
- How does innovation factor into the Port of Auckland’s long-term strategy, and how did this project support that vision?
- Innovation is at the heart of our Strengthening Our Mana strategy – built around Customers at the Core, Infrastructure for the Future, and Whanaungatanga, which is all about connection and looking after our people.
- This N4 upgrade delivers on all three. For customers, it’s about giving them a reliable service today and opening the door to new technology that will improve efficiency, productivity, and the overall customer experience. It modernises our core systems so we’ve got the right infrastructure for what comes next — whatever that future technology may be. And it makes work easier and safer for our people, strengthening that sense of whānau (family).
It’s the solid foundation we need to keep innovating with confidence.
- What were the biggest challenges you faced with the legacy N4 2.6 system?
- The upgrade to v4.0 was a major leap — we understand the largest in Kaleris’ history — so we anticipated it wouldn’t be straightforward. Two key challenges stood out:
Functionality gap – We had missed out on a decade of enhancements, which meant we’d missed out on valuable new technology and improved capabilities.
Risk – Running unsupported software increased costs to maintain support, introduced security vulnerabilities, and made significant issue resolution more complex and costly.
Additionally, the upgrade was more complex than usual because it involved not just updating the software but also implementing entirely new infrastructure and security measures.
- Could you walk us through the main steps or milestones of the implementation, such as planning, testing, and go-live?
- We started with a discovery and planning phase, where we scoped impacts across all user groups and mapped out dependencies. From there:
Execution Phase - Updated the Project Execution Plan to ensure everyone was aligned, along with a Change Management Plan, High-Level Solution Architecture and Test Strategy as foundation documents for the next stage.
Solution Design – Developed the detailed Solution Design, including workshops with the Kaleris Team.
Environment builds & configuration – Ordering and provision hardware, setting up and tailoring N4 4.0 for our operation.
Testing phases – Including functional testing, integration testing, and full end-to-end operational scenarios with our users.
Training & onboarding – Preparing our teams so they were confident before go-live.
Go-live & hypercare – Close vendor collaboration, daily check-ins, and rapid issue resolution to ensure stability.
- How did you and your team prepare for the transition to N4 4.0? Was there anything unique in your approach?
- We placed strong emphasis on early, targeted engagement with subject matter experts (SMEs) and operational teams. To ensure issues were identified and prioritised promptly, we established business feedback loops during testing.
- A key element to our approach was change management, not only training people on the upgraded system but helping them understand why the change was happening and how it would make their work easier. To support this, we brought in an experienced Business Change Manager dedicated to guiding and supporting the teams throughout the project.
- We also engaged an extremely experienced consultancy firm called Hatch that provided independent, expert feedback throughout all phases of the project. They ensured our project plan was comprehensive and offered valuable insights to support our approach throughout the duration of the project.
- How would you describe the collaboration between Port of Auckland and the Kaleris team throughout the project?
- It really felt like a partnership. With such a big upgrade, there were definitely some unknowns on both sides, but Kaleris stayed responsive and worked with us to find solutions. They were flexible when timelines or priorities shifted, which made it easier to navigate challenges together. Overall, it felt like one team working towards the same goals, building on our 10-plus years of working together.
- Were there any standout moments or key contributors on either the Port of Auckland or Kaleris side that helped drive the project’s success?
- Definitely. On our side, many of the project team and subject matter experts (SMEs) were balancing their regular day-to-day roles while deeply involved in the project. A great example of using our High Performance, High Engagement (HPHE) methodology was the close collaboration with stevedores, stevedoring trainers, and equipment controllers to develop the MDT screen display used in our straddles, hoists and stackers.
- The buildup to our go-live weekend was another standout moment. We conducted full cut-over rehearsals with our users, including rollbacks, and developed a step-by-step cutover schedule so everyone knew exactly what was happening and when. This plan was created collaboratively by all impacted users, including Kaleris and our external partners, ensuring alignment and readiness. Throughout that period, significant internal and external communications kept everyone informed and engaged.
- Kaleris had their technical leads onsite which was crucial for troubleshooting and guiding us though the complexity of this huge transition. The go-live weekend was a masterclass in calm, focused joint problem-solving between both teams, which really helped drive the project’s success.
- Since going live, what operational improvements or efficiencies have you observed?
- This upgrade was a ‘like-for-like’ move designed to set us up for future innovation. A backlog of enhancements is currently being worked on, and the new system allows us to implement upgrades more frequently, targeting two per year, with minimal impact on users. These more frequent upgrades will also mean we’re keeping the system current and optimised to support our evolving business needs.
To ensure a smooth transition to version 4.0, we closed the terminal for 48 hours to perform the upgrade, conduct thorough testing, and progressively go live. We now have a full test suite that can be run for every upgrade, which was one of the key reasons we hadn’t upgraded for over 10 years before this project.
- How does this upgrade position the Port of Auckland for future growth or new technology initiatives?
- It gives us a future-proofed platform. It’s also improved our ability to adapt quickly-whether that’s responding to regulatory changes, introducing new features, or scaling to meet demand. This upgrade wasn’t the end goal; it was the starting point for the next chapter in our digital transformation.
By upgrading to N4 4.0, Port of Auckland has strengthened its capacity for innovation and collaboration, benefiting not only its operations but also its customers and community. Fergusson Terminal is now equipped to adapt and thrive in a dynamic industry, laying the groundwork for ongoing progress.
Thank you to Gary Elmes and the Port of Auckland team for sharing your insights and partnership on this milestone project.