The General Santos Fish Port Complex's ultimate goal in 2016 was to improve systems efficiency to achieve higher outputs while delivering quality service to port customers. GSFPC’s activities and transactions are varied --- from vessel entry, berthing, fish unloading, trading, etc. to payment of services or use of facilities. Most of all, they are manpower intensive given the large number of customers and volume of transactions.

Spearheaded by Port Manager Luisito Romeo M. Correa, GSFPC embarked on a full operations automation project to handle a wide range of tasks and help speed up processes. Transactions that were time-consuming or inconvenient were incorporated into systems and softwares were developed to complete a number of different tasks and automatically post results.

By the end of the year, developed by the Port’s Information Technology group, the Harbor & Market operations automation system was 100% installed at Assessment Stations of the Market Operations Division and Harbor Operations Division, as well as at the Collecting Stations of Finance Services Division-Cash Section. Likewise, a fully enhanced program for cash & charge transactions using Transaction Billing form was installed and utilized.

The automation for client accreditation was also 100% completed and deployed with support for cash collection and updates for Statistical Reporting. Permits and IDs can be claimed by customers in less than 10 minutes processing time. With the automated systems in place, GSFPC can retrieve transaction data in real time making consolidation for statistical figures more efficient and convenient. For GSFPC, process automation is simply the way of the future; the need for many tedious tasks eliminated, and human error reduced to its lowest possible point.(Fritzie V. Leviste)