The vision of ONE Record

When we present ONE Record, we often speak about data models and ontologies. We describe the importance of standardizing a common API and security model and the need for a federated identification and authentication model. We proudly present the inspiring results of our ONE Record hackathons and the impressive work done by 25 companies carrying out pilot tests. But these facts don’t explain the promise of ONE Record in the transformation of digital cargo in logistics and transport. Let’s have a look at ONE Record from other angles.

Plug & Play connectivity

Imagine buying an economy class ticket from Geneva to Shanghai. That’s easy, right? You could do it in half an hour or less. Now imaging shipping freight from Geneva to Shanghai. There is a good chance that you wouldn’t able to do this without calling in help from experts.

If you step back from all the reasons why shipping freight is much harder then moving people, then it really doesn’t make sense.

ONE Record envisions a digital plug and play world. “Plug” refers to need for system connectivity without any integration. That may sound too good to be true but in the 70’s we faced the same challenge for hardware integration. Now we don’t even question whether or not a peripheral will plug into our computer or server. ONE Record aims for the same seamless connectivity between digital companies and their systems.

“Play” refers business creativity. If you had the seamless “plug”, what systems would you connect together? What business models would you design if companies could interact digitally without effort?

Transparent business data

Now that we booked a passenger flight and a transport, what would it take to get a status update? For a flight it’s easy, just google the flight number. Cargo transport status is a lot harder. You will probably have to refer to your shipping agent to find out.

Freight data is hard to get.

ONE Record is based on a Linked Data concept where every resource, every entity and every “logistics object” has a dedicated URL. Whether it is an AWB, piece in container, a consignee address or indeed the transport status of your shipment, it has its own URL. Because of the data security you will still need a secure application to access these URLs but assuming you have the rights, you can access all of your relevant freight data.

When you think of URL’s, you think of the web or the internet. This is why we sometimes refer to ONE Record as the “Internet of Logistics” or the “Logistics Web”.

Now if you have a URL for everything, imagine building apps. Building applications becomes as easy as creating web page. Just pick the relevant URLs for your logistics objects, tie them together with some business logic and some user reports and forms and you’re done.

Open innovation

The digitalization of our lives and economies is changing at an unprecedented pace. WhatsApp for example is only 10 years old and it has completely changed the way we interact.

At such a pace of change, old design & development methods like the “waterfall” approach don’t work anymore. We need an approach where communities of interested parties cooperate and collaborate in the development of ONE Record.

We need to develop the technology standards whilst testing them at the same time. The standards need to feed into the pilot tests whilst the experience from these tests are woven back into improvements of the standard. In some way, we need to crowd source the development and be open to ideas and lessons learnt.

We could call this the “walk, stumble and learn” approach.

We also need expert communities. Cargo logistics and transport is an expert business. Shipping pharma, race horses or electronics are completely different fields of expertise. The ONE Record development approach needs these expert communities and allow them to “plug in” their expertise but avoid the need for a massive model integration effort.

Digital opportunities and new business models

Perhaps the most frequently asked and least constructive question is: why would ONE Record work when other attempts at e-freight have only been partially successful. But it is a fair question with a surprising answer that hinges on the fact that unlike e-freight, ONE Record data is not passed from stakeholder to stakeholder but available to all at the same time.

By comparison, when the Lincoln Highway from New York to San Francisco was built a century ago, its purpose was to connect east and west coast and to facilitate economic connectivity. In fact it acted as a “river” that literally fed the coast-to-coast states and created new economic activities along the way.

ONE Record will do something similar. It won’t only ensure that the end-to-end transport and logistics chains have access to data, it will also create new activities along the way. Solutions, business opportunities and new functionalities will emerge to support the full logistics and transport network. In this way, ONE Record‘s vision is far beyond end-to-end connectivity that e-freight aimed for: it aims to enrich the cargo ecosystem as well. The first ONE Record apps developed at the ONE Record Hackathons give a taste of things to come.

Intelligent transport

In many ways, the internet is very similar to global trade, logistics and transport networks, except that it is designed to transport data only. In the internet you will find studies with titles like: "Package Routing in Dynamically Changing Networks: A Reinforcement Learning Approach."

Imagine that we could manage trade, logistics and transport like this… It would completely change the way our stakeholders would develop and operate their business, shifting from efficiency to network loads and from optimization to intelligence.

ONE Record will provide the data and connectivity to support intelligent transport and logistics.

Beyond air cargo

Although ONE Record is being developed by the air cargo community, that same community operates in all other modes as well. Logistics is a global environment and multi modal by definition.

But even beyond that, there is a need for a digital communication and connectivity standard that supports plug & play APIs, ontologies and security well beyond cargo. Global digitalization is still hard due to the current need for systems integration and the reliance on centralized platforms.

This doesn’t mean that ONE Record should go beyond cargo but it does mean that we will see similar and complementary initiatives to support the same objective and will help us advance as well.

Technology is easy

Early in my career I worked at an organization where they were maintaining an old PDP11, one of those fridge sized computers. The maintenance cost was very high and the group needed to decide whether they would continue to bear the cost or replace the computer by a UNIX system on a Digital Equipment Corporation desktop with the lightning fast alpha processor. They couldn’t face porting the application software and stuck with the old machine. 6 months later they had to close up shop; they couldn’t keep up with the maintenance.

In cargo we have to face similar questions. Do we continue to maintain and expand our legacy digital infrastructure or do we keep the old systems ticking over whilst developing new platforms for the future?

Like the story of my PDP11 colleagues, old tech is hard and new tech is easy. ONE Record is an opportunity for a new technology baseline. One that is based on contemporary technology, architectures and not least, skills. Everyone will make their own choice.

A new generation of logistics and transport experts

When we look back at the big technology and societal shifts, we see that the timelines are generational. The radio generation was different from the TV generation. The first web users are different from the first mobile app users. As we are entering an era of massive digitalization, we are barely understanding the impact of AI and quantum computing.

Although it is exciting and inspiring to work on the emerging ONE Record standards and technology, its fruits will be reaped by a new generation of logistics and transport professionals who will have grown up with AI and quantum computing and who will look back at mobile and web as we look at radio and TV.

But our businesses will still be there, if we do a good job. That will be our legacy as long as we embrace the inspiring challenge.

Photo credits: Oleg Ivanov, Alex Kotliarskyi, chuttersnap, VizAforMemories, Mimi Thian, Anders Jildén, Harrison Broadben on unsplash