(Copyright 2008 Commonwealth Business Media. All rights reserved.)Do shippers, carriers and forwarders who move steel, windmills, reactors, forest products and other breakbulk cargoes worldwide lack the logistics advances available through business-to-business e-solutions?
Shipping technology experts say it's time for breakbulk carriers to embrace technology similar to common methods used to track container shipments.
"More and more customers are asking for trace and track. The (carriers) will have to follow suit," said Albert Pegg, managing partner of Enerjetixx Pty. Ltd., an e-commerce shipping industry consultant based in Kontich, near Antwerp, Belgium.
"One could envision a breakbulk portal encompassing all regular bulk carriers, serving the various regions in the world," he said.
Greg Kefer agrees. He is corporate marketing director for GT Nexus, an Alameda, Calif., company that earlier this year acquired Metaship AG, a German provider of logistics management technology for importers, exporters and third-party logistics providers.
Breakbulk carriers have not pushed to get the potential efficiency gains from electronic bookings or shipping instructions, Kefer said. They are behind container carriers, who saw this value nearly a decade ago. "Trace and track historically is a more tactical reference to looking up the status of a single shipment with a single carrier," he said. "For companies that use more than one carrier, that's not enough."
Some shippers rate their carriers based on their Internet technology and data-delivery capabilities. Some even consider this more important than a carrier's ability to move freight, he said.
GT Nexus's trade portal links to breakbulk carriers to collect shipment-status messages via electronic feeds. These are then translated into a common format viewed via Web browsers, Kefer said. "We are doing this for a few heavy equipment customers who use ro-ro and breakbulk carriers to move large custom tractors (or large components) from assembly plants to dealers.
"For large shippers using multiple transportation modes, multiple carriers or third-party logistics providers, it is very difficult to get a clear, unified picture of the status of shipments and product through technology. You can go to various Web sites or call your reps every day, but that doesn't give you a global view of your entire supply chain - something many importers and exporters consider the Holy Grail of global logistics," Kefer said.
Breakbulk track-and-trace systems - the tracing of where cargo originates, the port of loading and sailing time and the tracking of where cargo is at any time, while still in the carrier's custody or at port of discharge - typically involve paper-heavy ocean bills of lading, packing lists and commercial invoices. Typically, each container has a uniform or identifying number that's stamped on a box. Breakbulk cargo may or may not have an identifying number.
Because of its individual pieces or the piecemeal nature involved in shipping goods such as rolling stock, steel pipe, pallets, forest products and windmills, breakbulk shipping is significantly more complex than container shipping.
GT Nexus has developed data-quality management programs to track breakbulk for shippers such as Crowley Maritime Corp. Karla Ruiz, Crowley's senior telesales representative in Jacksonville, Fla., described GT Nexus's trade platform as "very user-friendly. Very simple." The portal provides real-time information. "I only see benefits of having a live response. It's only a benefit for the customer," she said.
"With an on-demand platform, the various partners hook up to the network once and then all customers of that platform share that one integration. The data is translated and standardized once and applied to all customers. This amortizes the cost, complexity and ongoing management of collecting and translating data across an entire community of users," Kefer said.
Some breakbulk carriers and logistics providers have come up with in-house solutions to the track-and-trace question. Houston-based Agility Project Logistics plans to roll out a new tracking page with its Trans-Track, billed as a seamless Web technology that tracks breakbulk and project shipments and resembles an Excel spreadsheet. "We focus on tracking purchase-order line items," said Thomas Griffin, Agility's president and chief executive. "With breakbulk, we don't care how it ships - by truck, air, ocean or camel."
Agility's tracking technology displays "certain stages of shipment. It's a very simple, intuitive Web page. Our customers expect it," said Axel Kirchgessner, the company's vice president of information technology.
Within the breakbulk sector itself, there appears to be no urgent demand for a uniform breakbulk portal, although various Web site upgrades are under way. "There's a debate on both sides of the equation as to how it would be utilized and whether it's necessary. Most customs clearinghouses are responsible for checking breakbulk and containers," said Jerry Nagel, president and chief executive of Rickmers-Linie (America) Inc. in Houston.
Rickmers has upgraded its auto-attended telephone answering system because customers prefer that communications method. "Most of our customers actually prefer the M-O of a phone call," he said.
Carriers such as Rickmers-Linie and Chipolbrok, whose workhorse multipurpose vessels carry project cargo globally on liner or semi-liner schedules, follow their vessels' position based on satellite navigation, showing the information on their Web sites, Pegg said.
Intermarine is working with vendors and clients to develop a system later this year that tracks electronic data interchange activity, said Greg Stangel, vice president of marketing and systems in Houston. "A container is a great big steel box. Container numbers are stamped and readily available. Breakbulk can be pallets, drums, rolling stock or steel pipe. You may have 2,000 40-foot pieces of pipe, and rarely is every pipe marked," he said.
"Breakbulk is part of the supply chain. We can address (track and trace)," Stangel said. "It's a complex issue to do this in the breakbulk world. It's a tremendous undertaking that requires the cooperation of all parties involved."
Increased government security regulations may require breakbulk shippers to provide more complete, accurate and timely information about their cargoes. "Ultimately, shippers will need a robust, multimodal shipping information platform because the regulatory environment will continue to evolve," Kefer said.
Whether portals should be built as port-specific or carrier-specific remains a debated issue.
Laura Myers can be contacted at lmyersink@aol.com.
Readers of the digital edition of the Breakbulk magazine who want more information can click on:
www.chipolbrok.com.pl
www.gtnexus.com
www.intermarineusa.com
www.rickmers-linie.de
www.transoceanic.com
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