TPM21 is the world’s largest container shipping conference that brings the entire Trans-Pacific and other global players in the International container shipping and logistics industry together on a unified platform. … Read more here..
Timber is one of the most common and popular forestry products shipped around the world with a global export value of around $270 billion.
Digitalisation is sweeping through many industries including the timber industry, bringing with it dramatic reductions in the cost of obtaining, processing, and transmitting data achieved and changing the way we do business globally.
The Timber & Technology Conference 2021, organised by Centersource, is a virtual conference, which will discuss Global Market Developments & Innovative technologies in the timber industry and is a perfect platform for sawmills, importers, traders, and forwarders to understand and navigate global timber markets and work more efficiently.
In 2012 there were less than 2 million blog posts every day and in 2020 just over 10 million blog posts have been published every day across all topics.
And perhaps, the most sobering statistic: five exabytes (or 5 billion billion bytes) of data could store all the words ever spoken by humans between the birth of the world and 2003. In 2011 alone, five exabytes of content were created every two days.
Based on these numbers, we could be excused if we miss out some very important things or salient happenings in our industry due to all the digital clutter that we face every day.
But if you are interested in identifying and consuming information related to shipping and freight that matters, help is at hand in the form of a nifty app that gives you a snapshot of the important information that you need in less than 50 words.
For many customers, the shipment of timber products can be as problematic as it is valuable as it requires close coordination between the various parties..
Speed to market is quite crucial in this business, as is slow steaming or longer transit, to avoid tariff increases in some cases or to adjust the delivery schedules to suit the customer’s requirement..
All these factors together determine the actions that the timber companies must take in order to have a competitive advantage in the market..
Centersource Technologies, an independent digital marketplace and supply-chain automation platform has released a White Paper that provides answers to these questions..
The impact of COVID-19 has been a definitive jolt to supply chain logistics stakeholders, as the widespread transport blockades impacted global freight movement.
Maritime logistics operations witnessed massive delays at the port terminals and customs, as countries shut down borders for several weeks.
For realizing true end-to-end logistics visibility, it is critical to think beyond the maritime mid-mile. Data streams across the entire value chain must be tapped for insights while initiating inter-modality collaboration to gain real-time intelligence over freight movement.
In that context, the recent announcement of maritime visibility leader Ocean Insights partnering with over-the-road visibility major FourKites is a welcome step in integrating transport intelligence across modalities.
Among other things (including a lack of knowledge), cargo insurance is considered by many to be cumbersome due to the huge amount of manual work involved in applying for insurance and for claims, not to mention the time delays caused due to these processes and also the lack of visibility of incidents etc for the insurance industry..
In an effort to reduce these delays and provide visibility into entire shipping container fleets, Loginno an IoT visionary company from Israel has partnered with with Marsh to provide innovative IoT based cargo insurance..
Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA), a neutral, non-profit group established to further digitalisation of container shipping technology standards, in conjunction with its nine member carriers – MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, Evergreen, Yang Ming, HMM and ZIM has released IoT standards for remote Reefer container monitoring on board vessels..
Centersource, a timber trade and technology company has launched Timber Exchange, a comprehensive marketplace and digital toolset for Forwarders, Sawmills, and Importers. Timber Exchange arrives just in time to help … Read more here..
Cargo misdeclaration is nothing new to shipping and has been continuing for years especially in containerised shipments for various reasons..
Apart from the loss of millions of dollars worth of goods and assets, such misdeclarations also result in maritime disasters which have a huge impact on the environment and the loss of life (human or otherwise)..
There are enough examples of the consequences due to misdeclarations both in misdeclaration in weight and/or misdeclaration of hazardous content..
To tackle the scourge of weight misdeclaration, IMO and other stakeholders imposed the requirement of SOLAS VGM which came into effect in July 2016..
While life after SOLAS VGM seems to be hunky-dory and no major incidents have directly attributed to weight misdeclarations, hazardous cargo misdeclaration still seems to be rampant and several shipping lines are “gatvol” of these misdeclarations and have imposed severe financial penalties on the defaulters..
ZIM recently developed and implemented an innovative AI-based screening software to detect and identify incidents of misdeclared hazardous cargo before loading to vessel..
Market studies show that 25-30% of all freight invoices issued are erroneous. In a $350 billion ocean freight market, this accrued revenue loss can be quite significant.
Businesses that have been overpaying service providers for years due to incorrect invoices now have a solution in the form of Haven’s automated Freight Invoice Audit Platform.
The world of shipping involves several commercial, documentary, operational and financial processes..
While there have been many developments in the industry, a lot of the documentary processes in shipping and freight has stayed much the same for many decades..
Delays in document transmissions which could take anywhere between 5-10 days with the added risk of loss or delay of documents have severe consequences such as demurrage, detention and/or port storage, possible loss or cargo damage due to non-clearance and abandoned cargo..
CarogX Platform, a neutral, public blockchain-based platform is offering to provide a solution which will help to digitalize the trade documentation process using BDT (Blockchain Document Transfer) and reduce document transmission time to 20 seconds..!!
I took the platform for a test drive to see how it works and if it can assist the industry in saving costs and making the process of document transfer simpler, easier, economical and more importantly, secure and safer..
Haven, Inc., the California-based Software as a Service company that produces the premier Transportation Management System for international shippers, was selected among hundreds of candidates as one of the World Economic Forum’s “Technology Pioneers”.
The World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers are early to growth-stage companies from around the world that are involved in the design, development and deployment of new technologies and innovations, and are poised to have a significant impact on business and society. Technology Pioneers community is an integral part of the larger Global Innovators community of start-ups at the World Economic Forum.
An Italian design company has teamed up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to create prefabricated intensive care units (ICUs), to deal with escalating numbers of coronavirus patients around the world.
Coronavirus patients with access to hospital equipment, in particular ICU beds, have a much greater chance of survival. With 377,431 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on 24 March, health systems around the world are groaning under the strain.
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) has launched some digital initiatives aimed at creating a collaborative cross-industry effort to enable the standardisation of digital trade..
The first one called The ICC Digital Trade Standards Initiative (DSI), will build on work done by various like minded initiatives, many of which aim to digitise trade, notably through the development of open trade and technology standards to promote interoperability.
In the other initiative, the ICC is partnering with various government, business and other stakeholders to create digital solutions that will advance economic prosperity for all.
In line with its Declaration for the Next Century of Global Business, the ICC is committed to maximising the benefits of the digital economy through establishing key partnerships to unify, simplify, and transform trade processes for all.
SOLAS VGM – probably a term which may have slipped many people’s minds as it seems to have successfully integrated itself into the mainstream container shipping process since its mandatory implementation in July 2016.. Now it seems to be back, but in a good way though..
In July 2016, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) issued a mandatory requirement which required all shipping containers to be weighed and the weight information (Verified Gross Mass) be provided to the shipping lines as part of the SOLAS (Safety of Life At Sea convention) Chapter VI Regulation 2..
This requirement came on the back of continued misdeclaration of weights by shippers many of which resulted in incidents at sea causing loss of property and/or lives..
The regulation allowed shippers to provide the VGM to the carriers using two different methods
Although there has not been any real comments or incidents relating to the misdeclaration of weights after the implementation of the SOLAS VGM regulation in 2016, it has been reported that shipping industry has been struggling with Method 1, as physically weighing every shipping container requires significant efforts and costly, space-consuming scales..
Well, it seems there is a solution for that..