The Port of Rotterdam is the beating heart of the Dutch economy. As Europe’s largest port, the Port of Rotterdam Authority (HbR) processes enormous volumes of shipping traffic, goods, and data every single day. This must be done safely, reliably, and efficiently—24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
To make this possible, HbR relies on the Harbour Master Management Information System—an essential system for managing maritime traffic. For the development, quality assurance, and continuous improvement of this system, HbR engaged the expertise of the professionals from Test Automation Group (TAG), part of Sofius.
The Challenge
The Harbour Master Management Information System consists of a landscape of backend services built on a microservice architecture, combined with several frontend applications. HbR faced a major renewal: the development of a new web-based frontend that needed to be more reliable, user-friendly, and future-proof.
The central question was:
“How do we ensure that this new frontend meets all requirements while giving us fast, reproducible, and continuous insight into quality?”
The existing test tooling was no longer sufficient. Maintenance required increasing amounts of time, tests became less stable, and new functionalities were delivered later as a result. This posed a significant risk for a system that literally cannot afford downtime.
TAG as an Extension of the HbR Team
What started in 2017 with one test automation engineer evolved into a close collaboration with multiple TAG professionals across different DevOps teams. They not only helped HbR establish a solid strategy but also ensured its practical implementation and continuous optimization.
“TAG never felt like a supplier, but rather as part of the team. They actively contributed ideas, took initiative, and brought both calm and structure to a complex trajectory.”
The consultants worked closely with developers, architects, and operations teams. They contributed deep technical expertise, but also a strong drive for continuous improvement—something that is essential in a critical environment like the Port of Rotterdam.
Test Approach: From TestCafé to Playwright and Storybook
One of the most important steps was selecting a future-proof test automation framework. The existing tooling required too much manual effort and lacked flexibility. TAG conducted a thorough comparison of three options: TestCafé, Cypress, and Playwright.
A proof of concept ultimately made the decision clear: Playwright proved to be the ideal match, offering TypeScript support, stability, fast test execution, and excellent capabilities for request mocking and visual regression testing.
In addition, Storybook was introduced as a component library. This allowed many UI components to be tested individually, significantly reducing the number of end-to-end tests and further accelerating the development process.
The Result
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Easier maintenance
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Faster insight into feature quality
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Fewer flaky tests
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More predictable releases
Exactly what the Harbour Master Management Information System requires.
By adopting Playwright, implementing component-driven development with Storybook, and fostering close collaboration within the DevOps teams, HbR now benefits from an agile, stable, and future-proof testing approach. The quality of the new frontend is continuously visible, enabling features to move to production faster and with greater confidence.
The collaboration between HbR and TAG has since become firmly established—in 2020, TAG was even selected as the preferred supplier for automated testing.
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