Aditi Rasquinha, Director Seafreight at Kuehne & Nagel, discusses the future of shipping, from talks around IMO’s 2020 sulphur cap, to digitalization and automation. In the meantime, port of Rotterdam published a white paper focusing of the benefits of digitalization to the supply chain.
Specifically, in light of digitalization, Mrs Rasquinha commented
Where is it going to take us?
In the meantime, she highlighted that e-commerce and consumers that want their products is rapidly increasing, meaning that near shoring, 3D printing play an important role on how the market is changing. The role of the industry is to educate shippers of their goals and services or even what the CO2 services are.
Mrs Rasquinha advises shippers that want to increase reliability in supply chain is
Look internal. Look at your forecast, and at your demand planning.
Meanwhile, the port of Rotterdam launched ‘Reliability is key in a digital supply chain’ white paper focusing on digitalization. The paper addresses that ‘The greatest motivation for digitising supply chains has been shown to be cost savings, followed by increased sales and support from new business models.’
The port notes that transparency is a great advantage provided by digitalization, as for instance it only takes a couple of mouse clicks for someone to order a pair of sports shoes.
Digitalization enables the gathering of large volumes of data so that the coordination of separate modes of transport, synchromodality and hinterland connections can be further optimised.
Moreover, only when all links in a chain are fully aware of the benefits and really want to make the most of them, success can be achieved. There must also be something to gain for every link. Sharing is therefore at least as crucial.
Concluding, Port of Rotterdam advises
Anyone who wishes to stay ahead of the competition, can no longer circumvent the digital infrastructure. As already stated, it is time to explore, adapt and upscale. Step by step. This will only increase reliability.
For more information on the white paper, you may click here.
