📋 Tender Overview
As technology advances and industry dynamics evolve more and more maritime businesses are focusing their time energy and resources on digitalization. Technological advances are expected to make shipping and the whole supply chain much more efficient for the more than 11 billion tonnes of goods that are traded annually by sea across the globe. This move will have numerous benefits for trading safety security and the environment with ISO standards playing a key role in this process.Ever since people could tie logs together to form rafts and use them to transport goods by water seaborne trade has flourished and grown. Historians believe that the first international trade routes were developed five thousand years ago between the Arabian Peninsula and Pakistan whilst by the 18th century trade routes spanned the globe. Transporting goods and people by sea is an efficient and cost-effective process and shipping is big business with more than 90 of the worlds trade in volume carried by sea according to the International Maritime Organization IMO.Whilst trade is beneficial trading through ports is complex. When ships enter and leave ports vital information about cargoes crews vessel details and many other things has to be exchanged with the authorities ashore. Access to accurate and complete data records is essential to making the right decisions at the right time. Ship operators are required to provide numerous types of records certifications and data relating to their cargoes passengers safety environmental protection and customs declarations.The process might also require several regulatory authorities as well as interacting with business-to-business functions such as freight unloading storage and forwarding. This in turn requires communications between a multitude of different systems in businesses ships ports and regulatory authorities. Such an intricate network enables vast amounts of information and data to be exchanged to get a ship and its cargo through a port. Sounds simple right Not quite.TECHNOLOGY CURRENTS ABOUNDAs technology advances and industry dynamics evolve more and more maritime businesses are focusing their time energy and resources on digitization. The right digital technology can uphold continuity in even the most challenging circumstances including operations that are exceedingly complex with a high volume and velocity of activity. As technology moves the shipping industry by storm it is estimated that a 10 to 30 improvement in efficiency in the EU logistics sector equates to a cut in costs of between one to three hundred billion British pounds for European industries with a consequent reduction of 15 to 30 in CO2 emissions.Digitalization big data and new technologies such as artificial intelligence are key in enabling the post-COVID recovery IMO Secretary-General Kitack Lim told a webinar on digital connectivity earlier this year. Cooperation between shipping ports and logistics will be vital for enhancing the efficiency and sustainability of shipping and therefore facilitating trade and fostering economic recovery and prosperity Lim said. Digitalization and new technologies will also be the key to allowing standardization and therefore enhancing the efficiency of shipping.So how is effective and efficient trade facilitated Trade facilitation requires three activities which are simplification harmonization and standards explains Sue Probert Chair of UNCEFACT which is the United Nations global centre for trade facilitation and electronic business. UNCEFACT is supported by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe UNECE in Geneva. Probert has worked in trade facilitation for 30 years advised governments regulatory bodies and businesses worldwide and is currently the lead editor of the UNCEFACTs Core Components Library which is a set of data semantic standards that aids seamless trade.FULL SPEED AHEAD ON A SINGLE SYSTEMThe need for standardization was also highlighted by IMOs Facilitation Head Julian Abril who noted the mandatory requirement for electronic data exchange in the IMOs Facilitation Convention effective since April 2019. Discussions are currently underway towards making a Single Window for the maritime sector mandatory so that all data for arrival and departure of ships is submitted through a single point and transmitted to the relevant agencies involved.The standardization and harmonization needed for this to happen is captured in the IMO Compendium on Facilitation and Electronic Business. The IMO Compendium is a set of tools for software developers who create the systems necessary for sending electronic data for all the records data and information that must be exchanged between ships shore and regulatory authorities. The Compendium comprises a data set and reference model for electronic data interchange EDI now required by the latest amendment of the Facilitation Convention. The goal is to make it easier for companies involved in maritime trade or transport to create software that can communicate no matter which standard they are based on.Single Windows act as a centre for regulatory authorities involved in trade and businesses that have to submit information to them. A Single Window will only deal with regulatory authorities for businesses whilst a Port Community System PCS can cover many other functions as well and they often do such as logistics and freight forwarding describes Richard Morton Secretary-General of the International Port Community Systems Association IPCSA. So in a sense PCSs were the original Single Window he adds.
