Developer tools according to industry standards

Every process at a container terminal is designed to quickly transfer containers to trucks, trains and freight barges, in order to get the products to the customer with maximum efficiency. But logistics at a terminal can be unpredictable. Should a crane break down, tasks must be divided over other cranes.Additionally, with all these vehicles moving around, container terminals can get overcrowded. Parts of a terminal may also temporarily be inaccessible while mechanics perform maintenance.

This all goes to show that container terminal software must be extremely stable and have a high uptime, for it to be available 24/7, 365 days a year. It will come as no surprise then, that TBA's developers work continuously on bespoke software solutions to make this happen. Over the last 20 years, they have developed a comprehensive and innovative software suite. However, they still ran into limitations. The developers used to work with self-built test frameworks with automated tests and average test runs of 6-7 hours. This meant they could not develop continuously. Instead, they often had to wait for a sprint to finish before they could test their code, causing peak periods on the DevOps platform.

TBA Group realised it needed faster feedback on the quality of the code, more test opportunities and less overall frustration. This triggered the company to scout for high-quality, proven tools that could be integrated into a new DevOps workflow, enabling continuous delivery. This option had another advantage: any new developers joining TBA would already be familiar with these tools, thereby reducing their onboarding time.