New Platform Meets Shipping Industries' First Track-And-Trace Standards

INTTRA by E2open on Tuesday announced a new technology platform, compliant with the new Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA) Interface Standard for Track and Trace 1.0, published last week by the DCSA. The platform sets a new standard in the shipping industry, setting the bar for technology companies and shipping lines alike to standardize the fundamental information provided across the carrier liner domain through technology-agnostic interfaces.

INTTRA, an early entrant in the shipping e-logging space, started out as a consortium of large container lines in 2001. By 2010, it became a private company with the founding carriers holding 49% of the stock and private-equity firm ABS Capital Partners holding the rest. Over the decade INTTRA showed impressive growth, increasing its market share by 40%.

In late 2018, supply chain software giant E2open acquired INTTRA, and it is now the ocean shipping industry's largest neutral network, software and information provider, with a 26% market share. The company's products and scaled network help customers digitalize. While the technology has existed for such change well before now, change has come slowly to this sector of the logistics industry.

While standardization has always been the stumbling block even with the technology tools available, the DCSA is finally in a position to aid all carrier members' customers. According to Rajesh Krishnamurthy, executive vice president at CMA CGM, carriers owed it to their customers to provide better visibility of the cargo in transit.

DCSA was launched in Amsterdam in April 2019 after gaining regulatory approval from the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission (FMC). Its partners include MSC, A.P. Moller – Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, CMA-CGM, Evergreen Line, HMM, Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp., and Zim Integrated Shipping Services and Ocean Network Express. The organization is a neutral, nonprofit association for ocean carriers focused on standardization, digitalization and interoperability in container shipping.

The focus is on ensuring agreement within the industry on shared industry requirements and standards, which everyone agrees will streamline interoperational functionality and data sharing across parties. It builds on the September 2019 DCSA Container Shipping Industry Blueprint, which recommended benchmarks for the processes used in container shipping and identifying critical events in container transportation workflows from end to end.

"We are excited to announce the INTTRA platform's compliance with this new standard. As all the carriers around the world align to the same standards, the data quality and timeliness of event messaging shippers can expect from a networked platform like INTTRA will significantly improve," said Santosh Nanda, general manager of the Logistics Service Providers business unit for E2open. "This is a huge benefit for all of our customers — BCOs, carriers and LSPs alike."

The new track-and-trace standards are intended to set a bar for carriers and technology partners to attain. The goal is to reduce unnecessary complexity and cost while improving the speed of transactions by properly collaborating and providing full visibility into container status. Overall visibility across the supply chain will improve, enhancing the ability to predict and plan cargo movement. The standards also define common shipping terminology and events and solve many long-standing issues in the shipping community.

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