Hapag-Lloyd and Singapore-based Ocean Network Express (ONE) have announced their completed integration onto the TradeLens platform, aiming to ensure a more timely and consistent view of logistics data for their containerised freight. TradeLens is a neutral, third-party platform launched by IBM and A.P. Moller – Maersk to help modernise the world’s supply chain ecosystems and is run on IBM Cloud and IBM Blockchain.
Since the completion of multiple pilot projects as well as the integration, Hapag-Lloyd and ONE, the world’s fifth and sixth largest carriers respectively, according to PR Newswire, are working to help their clients and business partners across major geographies benefit from TradeLens’ ability to increase efficiency and improve access to information. They join foundation carriers A.P. Moller – Maersk, as well as CMA CGM and MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) which both completed their pilots and integration in October 2020, and five other carriers already inputting shipping data into the TradeLens platform.
“TradeLens technology holds great potential to help enable the digitisation of supply chain processes and documentation handling,” said Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of Hapag-Lloyd. “Our customers will clearly benefit from increased transparency, accuracy, speed and efficiency in their supply chains – leading to reduced cost.”
Reportedly, the TradeLens ecosystem includes more than 300 organisations – encompassing ten ocean carriers and data from more than 600 ports and terminals. In total, five of the top six global shipping carriers are integrated onto the platform contributing to the digitisation of documentation and automated workflows, according to PR Newswire.
“We believe TradeLens can bring together all parties in the supply chain to the digital ecosystem where customers can get seamless, transparent and secure sharing of shipping milestones and trade documents. With its open standards and open governance, it can benefit our customers and the entire industry to drive for digitalization and automation,” said Jeremy Nixon, CEO of Ocean Network Express.
TradeLens aims to offer shippers and freight forwarders direct, permissioned access to digitised, multi-carrier visibility and documentation processes through a single platform, reducing the need for paper-based processes and giving participants in global trade a single picture of the flow of their goods.
Through the TradeLens platform, network participants are also said to be able to connect their key supply chain partners to the digital platform as well, allowing data and documents to be published and consumed more quickly and only among permissioned parties.
“A huge barrier to global trade has long been the inability for customers to securely share crucial information regarding the status of goods in an easily accessible and transparent way,” said Mike White, CEO GTD Solutions and Head of TradeLens. “By addressing this problem, the TradeLens ecosystem has grown rapidly, and the onboarding of Hapag-Lloyd and ONE along with their customers helps extend the value of TradeLens across the entire TradeLens ecosystem, enabling connectivity to two-thirds of global containerized freight for all customers and other permissioned parties through a single platform. All participants benefit from reduced manual processes, while also streamlining processes from automation and improved forecasting.”
Source: PR Newswire
