Descartes Unveils New E-freight Solution For Air Cargo
IATA World Cargo Symposium — Descartes Systems Group, a federated global logistics network, unveiled its e-freight solution, Descartes e-Pouch, created specifically to address the International Air Transport Association (IATA) e-freight initiative and the needs of the air freight industry to automate and standardize the cargo shipment process.
The IATA e-freight initiative is an industry-wide program that aims to reduce the use of paper documents in the airfreight supply chain by moving to a simpler, paper-free, electronic environment. It involves, among other participants, airlines, shippers, freight forwarders, ground handling agents, and customs authorities.
The Descartes e-freight solution helps to group electronic shipment documents together in a unified construct – the e-Pouch. Descartes' e-Pouch allows users to easily share information with the appropriate parties, automate routine interactions, flag problems, such as missing documents, at the earliest possible instance and provide a repository for retrieval of completed deliveries.
Built upon Descartes' Global Logistics Network (GLN), e-Pouch integrates with Descartes' multi-party suite of air cargo management tools, including solutions for bookings, shipment monitoring, quality performance reporting and customs filing. In addition to the air cargo management tools, Descartes logistics messaging network reduces the investment required to connect and exchange documents between logistics and other trading partners.
Descartes e-Pouch is designed to handle air shipment documents in a fully automated fashion including integration of electronic images. In areas where structured electronic documents are not available, e-Pouch uses the GLN imaging services functionality to capture original documents and insert them into the air shipment folder. This service operates in a similar fashion as paper document processes. In addition to automating air shipment processes, Descartes e-Pouch provides an interface and exception management facilities to repair specific classes of data problems.
"The highly demanding and competitive nature of the air freight industry demands that organizations exchange data between disparate systems in an efficient manner, but also requires full information visibility into each and every shipment," said Cindy Yamamoto, Senior Vice President of Global Logistics Product Strategy at Descartes. "With Descartes e-Pouch, users can readily share information with the appropriate parties and comply with emerging industry standards such as IATA's e-freight initiative to improve efficiency and reduce costs across the air cargo industry."
For more information about Descartes' solutions for air carriers and forwarders, the new e-Pouch offering and our Global Filer customs filing portal, visit Descartes' representatives at the IATA World Cargo Symposium at the Sheraton Wall Centre Hotel, Vancouver BC from March 8-11, 2010 at booths 44 & 45. Also, hear industry experts from Descartes share their insight during the conference in sessions on the Quality-Cargo 2000 and Customs tracks. For a detailed agenda follow the links at http://www.iata.org/wcs2010.
About Descartes
Descartes, is making the world a better place by enabling global organizations with logistics-intensive businesses to save money by improving the productivity and performance of their operations. Underlying Descartes' offerings is the Descartes Global Logistics Network (GLN), one of the world's most extensive multi-modal business application networks. As a federated platform, the Descartes GLN combines with component-based ‘nano' sized applications to provide messaging services between logistics trading partners, shipment management services to help manage third party carriers and private fleet management services for organizations of all sizes. Descartes' solutions and services deliver results by enabling organizations around the world to reduce administrative costs, billing cycles, fleet size, contract carrier costs, and mileage driven; improve pickup and delivery reliability; and optimize working capital through fleet visibility. Descartes' hosted, transactional and packaged solutions deliver repeatable, measurable results and fast time-to-value. Descartes customers include an estimated 1,600 ground carriers and more than 90 airlines, 30 ocean carriers, 900 freight forwarders and third-party providers of logistics services, and hundreds of manufacturers, retailers, distributors, private fleet owners and regulatory agencies. The company has more than 400 employees and is based in Waterloo, Ontario, with operations in Atlanta, Copenhagen, Heverlee, Pittsburgh, Ottawa, Montreal, Miami, Washington DC, Derby, London, Silver Spring, Stockholm, Suzhou, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Toronto. For more information, visit www.descartes.com.
SOURCE: Descartes Systems Group