Cargo Community System to achieve end-to-end milestone tracking

Freight Forwarders and Exporters often see Airport as a blackhole. Yes, once cargo enters the airport precinct, these stakeholders would hardly get any visibility on the shipment. But the stakeholders on the air side too face challenges such as redundant data entries, revenue leakage and regulatory delays. Due to such issues, shipments either go missing or delayed for departure. To thwart this issue, industry experts are insisting on a transparent and smart mechanism to keep all stakeholders informed on every single shipment movement.

An IT solution powered by cutting edge technologies such as IoT, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning is the way ahead. And, Airport Cargo Community System is the right solution, which is a proper confluence of all these cutting-edge technologies.

Read more on Achieving Multi-Modal Connectivity with Cargo Community Systems

How is an Airport Cargo Community System the most powerful tool?

Airport Cargo Community System will create a fast lane for pristine paperwork and prevents those bearing incorrect paperwork from causing delays and other inefficiencies. Yes, it enables generation of digital documents and exchange through digital means. Documents such as air waybills and manifests are churned out electronically and the status of approval can be tracked end-to-end. Most importantly, IATA recommended EDI messages like FHL, FWB are triggered on completion of a task.

Since the pandemic outbreak, Cargo Community Systems are in high demand

Since January 2020, every air cargo stakeholder is eyeing at a strategy transformation. Now, most of them have accepted that remote working and paperless trade is mandatory to save the lives of the workforce who voluntarily give up the risk factors and appear to work only to keep the supply chain active. According to a WHO study, the virus stays on paper for 72 hours and with this the field workers are at risk of contracting the virus. Also, data security, compliance control and becoming future ready are among the few reasons why airlines, ground handlers, forwarders, customs brokers, and others chose to use Cargo Community Systems. Some of the leading handlers and airlines in Middle East, Africa, Europe, and North America have seriously considered and implemented community platforms.

e-Commerce exodus and Air Cargo

In addition to this, the rise of e-commerce is another reason why the demand for cargo community system have rose. Since the pandemic outbreak there has been a significant rise on e-commerce buying. Especially, the need to procure authentic products have enabled retailers to quickly switch to e-commerce and enable rapid delivery through air cargo. Therefore, both e-commerce and air cargo are complimenting each other’s growth trajectory.

How Cargo Community Systems are enabling milestone tracking?

Nearly 79 per cent of Air cargo stakeholders believe they have limited to zero visibility on cargo movement. A cargo community system encourages communication among stakeholders in the land side and air side. It also empowers all stakeholders to interact within each other to curtail the complexities involved in manual and legacy systems. Just by eliminating the communication bottleneck, significant amount of complexities can be reduced.

Some key features on milestone tracking in Airport Cargo Community System

• IATA recommended EDI messaging: Not all service providers offer IATA recommended EDI messaging. But, certain organizations with 100 percent multi-modal capabilities do offer IATA recommended EDI messaging service which is now slowly becoming a norm across the globe. For example, once the freight forwarder makes an entry in the electronic dashboard, the same can be triggered as an EDI message to the next stakeholder who is responsible to move the cargo ahead.
• Pre-alerts: A Handler might not be aware of a truck arrival and the trucker might not be aware of congestion at the airport complex. Hence, they both require a common mode of communication. A community system will enable slot booking system through which a transporter can intimate terminal operator or ground handler before leaving the shipper’s warehouse. Hence, the handler can gather the required resources to handle the incoming cargo. This way, there will be little or no truck congestion.
• Status made available to all: If in case a cargo is stuck at one stakeholder’s end, it will be known to the rest involved in the process. This is possible because most of the cargo community systems today are powered by Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. Hence, transparency is inevitable.

Wrapping up

In all ways possible, a cargo community system is the right tool to track shipment movement and overcome limited to zero cargo visibility. While leading airports across the globe have already benefitted out of this, other airports are yet to experience the power of cargo community system. Once every single airport adopts this technology diligently. With features such as pharma tracking, e-payments and milestone tracking, airport cargo community system is enabling smoother, safer and faster operations.

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