Role of Visibility Providers in Global Track and Trace
Global shipping is a critical component of international trade, with most goods transported by sea. According to the International Chamber of Shipping, around 90% of global trade is carried by the international shipping industry. This transport mode presents unique challenges regarding tracking and visibility once the vessel has departed from the port. The lack of real-time updates has historically led to confusion, increased costs, and inefficiencies in the supply chain.?
As 90% of goods are transported by sea, tracking and tracing the vessel becomes challenging for customers once the vessel departs from the Port of Loading. Traditionally, customers have relied on information from vessel operators, updates from shipping line websites, or third-party service providers (LSP) who communicate via email or phone call. In this blog, we will understand how visibility providers add value by sending geo-coordinates as location updates.?
In today’s world, visibility is essential from the shipment’s departure from the factory or warehouse until it reaches the end customer. Visibility improves transparency, allows for better planning, reduces costs, and enhances customer satisfaction. A study by Supply Chain Dive found that shippers with high visibility reported a 20% reduction in lost or delayed shipments and a 10% decrease in overall supply chain costs. Visibility providers significantly enhance the stakeholder experience by providing real-time updates and geo-coordinates, thus allowing all parties to track the exact location of their shipments.?
In this blog, we focus on the visibility providers in the industry and how they add value to various stakeholders involved in the supply chain process. A report by Gartner highlighted that companies investing in real-time transportation visibility platforms (RTTVP) can achieve a 50% improvement in on-time delivery performance.??
Visibility providers are firms that onboard carriers (vessel operators, NVOCCs, freight forwarders, 3PLs, truck operators, rail, air) to receive various real-time updates. During shipment execution, various real-time updates are received from the carrier by the visibility provider. Visibility providers use various technologies such as IoT (GPS devices, RFID tags), mobile number-based tracking, electronic logging devices (ELDs), and geofencing. Additionally, using AIS technology, the position of the ship is transmitted to carriers, who then forward this information to visibility providers.?
?Below are the possible updates received:?
?
? Event Updates: Events, whether planned or unplanned, are updated in real-time.?
? Planned Event Updates: These include events like loading started, loading ended, departure, and arrival, which are updated along with a timestamp. Examples include Planned/Actual.?
? Unplanned Event Updates: Delays due to unforeseen circumstances such as a cyclone. For example, the shipment status will be updated as “Delayed.”?
? Location Update: The actual position of the container, truck, vessel, or rail is sent along with geo-coordinates.?
? Estimated Time Updates: Based on real-time data, the ETA (Expected Time of Arrival) at the destination port is updated.?
? Vessel/Carrier Updates: When a departure event is reported by the carrier, updates are sent along with the vessel name.?
?
SAP BN4L Global Track and Trace offers out of the box integration with visibility providers.?
There are many visibility providers in the market, and customers can choose their visibility provider based on the nature of their tracking needs. Through visibility providers, the job of onboarding carriers into SAP BNL is eliminated, and better visibility of shipments is achieved for shippers. Below are a few that are onboarded to BNL GTT:?
In my recent project experience, I had the chance to work with Project44, where carriers were onboarded, and tracking updates were received for ocean (FCL) and road (FTL) shipments. Project44 is one of the visibility providers for freight collaboration and tracking shipments integrated into the SAP Business Network. Project44 supports multimodal shipment tracking across various modes of transport.
领英推荐
Example Scenario:
A shipment requires three 40-foot containers to be transported from France to India. The shipment is sent to a visibility provider for tracking. There are three stages in the shipment involving multimodal transportation:?
Once tracking is started, real-time updates with timestamps are received. Below are the possible events reported, which may vary:
At the Factory in France:
At the Port of Loading in France:
At the Port of Discharge in India:
At the Customer Location in India:
For ocean shipments, the container ID is sent to ocean carriers for tracking, and actual updates such as loading started, transshipment loaded, and arrival at the port of discharge are received in Project44. This information is sent to GTT and updated for the respective container IDs.
For road shipments, Project44 tracks the shipments using the license plate number provided in the shipment, provided the license plate number is registered in the NMC Portal. The NMC is a free portal for carriers to share ELD/GPS data.
Sign in to the NMC – Project44: project44 ( p-44.com )
In Project44, the driver’s mobile number can also be used to track road shipments using the DriveView mobile app, where the driver reports events.
DriveView User Guide: PDF – Project44 ( p-44.com )
Integration with SAP BNL GTT
Using the tile ‘Discover Business Partners,’ search for the visibility provider to be onboarded and initiate a connection request. Once the connection request is accepted, proceed to the next step.
Then, using the ‘Configure Partner Connection’ tile, establish integration between BNL GTT and the visibility provider. The URL and credentials shared by the visibility provider will be configured here.
For further info following link explains the required configuration setup for consuming Project44 services through SAP BNL GTT: SAP_LBN_p44_config_guide.pdf ?
Please try this out and let me know your feedback. Stay tuned and follow SCM YUGA for more interesting blogs.
Disclaimer: All the information provided here is based on recent project implementation experience and is for informational purposes only.
Author: Ambareesh Vemuri
Designation: Associate Consultant at SCMYUGA Technologies Pvt Ltd.
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]
Insightful! AMBAREESH