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Project
leaders think a common electronic language will do wonders for efficiency in the
shortsea sector.
A push to make European shortsea
shipping more competitive with road transport will be led by a project that simply
aims to get the business communicating better.
Despite short trips and quick port
turnarounds, shortsea shipping is slowed down by the low-level usage of information
technology (IT) and a
Tower of Babel
approach to messaging.
A project is underway to make shortsea
transport 10% to 15% more competitive with road transport just by standardising
the way shippers, carriers and ports transmit information between each other.
Efficiency of documentation processes
to match the speed of the transport is the aim of the project, which is part of
the European Union (EU)'s Marco Polo programme to take freight off the roads.
The initiative, Shortsea XML, has
EUR 900m ($1.2bn) and just two years, ending on 15 September 2008, to bring more
efficiency to shortsea booking processes.
Led by Norwegian transport-technology
company NorStella, the project is bringing together participants from all parts
of the industry to test standardised systems. Some 30 shippers, carriers, ports
and technology suppliers have signed up to Shortsea XML but project leader Mariann
Sundvor says the scheme is open to as many operators as want to join.
Sundvor says Shortsea XML plans
to deliver data for standardised systems by early summer. First testing involving
lines like
Sea-Cargo UK
, logistics operator VCK and Norwegian paper and timber exporter Norske Skog will
follow between August and December.
Other carriers already involved
include the likes of Containerships, Color Line, North Sea Container Line, Norlines
and DFDS Lys Line plus the ports of
Bilbao
,
Le Havre
and
Amsterdam
with
Rotterdam
on the advisory panel. Software suppliers include Seagha, Softship and ViaMichelin.
XML has existed for several years
as a common electronic language for internet-based communication but both sides
of a shipping transaction also need to format information in the same way for systems
to be able to talk to each other.
So the project aims to get transport
users and providers to work together to develop standard-message formats and then
give technical support.
The shortsea sector has been slower
in developing a common approach to communication partly because of the large number
of small operators who so far have not had the time or money to develop the technology.
At the same time, many larger companies have developed systems, which need to be
able to link with customer or supplier systems.
Shortsea XML will provide an electronic-translation
hub to translate old message formats into XML language, based on international standards
developed by United Nations (UN) electronic trade body UN/Cefact and maintained
by the container line and terminal user group SMDG.
Results are expected to provide
a global standard for all kinds of transport and forwarding.
Sundvor said: "This project will
not dictate how companies do their business. It will use today's procedures but
take them electronic and standardise message formats."
As with internet commerce, the changes
should move operators forward from the era of taking bookings by fax and rekeying
them, thereby bringing to an end the need to redo paperwork each time there is a
change to instructions.
Automatically input orders can be
updated on screen, speeding up and cutting the cost of administration processes.
The project will not end in September
2008.
Assuming it has been successful,
it will continue to be promoted by European shipping organisations as well Short
Sea Promotion centres set up in each country.
NorStella managing director Arild
Haraldsen says there is political will behind the projects, as well as sound business
savings, although he concedes a strong Norwegian element might seem strange as the
country is not a member of the EU.
The move to harmonisation of trade
and transport procedures has been long and slow in the past but there is urgency
about ShortSea XML, which has to work within its two-year framework and cannot exceed
its deadline by even one day.
However, Sundvor adds that the project
is also a take-off point for the industry to move ahead. With Norwegian imagery
she said: "We see September 2008 [the deadline]as reaching the end of a ski jump."
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