MAERSK Lines and IBM
have set up a joint venture to provide the container shipping industry with a
blockchain "pipeline" where carriers, terminals, freight forwarders
and railroads can upload cargo movement information to provide shippers with an
end-to-end record.
The independent company stems from a
project that Maersk Line and IBM announced 10 months ago to deploy "blockchain"
technology to digitalise the complex paper trail involved in the global supply
chain. IBM and Maersk estimate the initiatives could save the industry
billions of dollars, reported IHS Media.
Maersk expects to launch the first
two elements of the project - a shipping information pipeline offering
end-to-end supply chain visibility and a paperless trade system that will
digitise and automate paperwork filings - by the end of September. The pipeline
effort will focus on building corridors on the top trades: Asia-Europe,
trans-Pacific, and trans-Atlantic.
To make it work, however, Maersk
will need to secure the support of supply chain participants across the
spectrum, as users of the system and providers of information about cargo as it
moves along the supply chain. That is one reason the shipping line decided to
create a new "neutral" company to create and operate the portal that
will be independent and be guided by an advisory board.
Through blockchain the record of
transactions cannot be tampered with and will provide a new level of accountability
to parties within the supply chain.
Maersk's said the technology's two
main functions - the "shipping information pipeline" and the move to
digitise and automate the supply chain - will provide "greater
transparency, security, efficiency and simplicity to a shipping ecosystem that
is massive in scale."
Head of global trade digitisation
for Maersk Group, Michael White, said: "If we are really going to help
drive digitisation in our industry, we have to try different models."
The system will reduce the cost of
administering cargo movement, cut fraud and reduce administration costs by
cutting out paper inefficiencies, Mr White said, adding that "the cost of
paperwork is often more than the cost of transportation."
Since Maersk and IBM began working
on the project, several companies have been participating in its testing, the
carrier said. Among them were DuPont, Dow Chemical, Tetra Pak, port of
Houston, Rotterdam Port Community System Portbase, the Customs Administration
of the Netherlands, and US Customs and Border Protection.
Maersk has said in the past that its
analysis has shown that shippers sending cargo around the world had to interact
with 28 different entities - among them customs, terminals, shipping lines, and
forwarders - and that without digitalisation the process could generate a stack
of paper two inches thick.
Source : HKSG.
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