Japan based Weathernews and Mitsui & Co. announced that they have created a joint venture, maruFreight, Inc., which will provide a maritime platform to match cargo with the best shipping methods. The service will officially start in July 2018.
Namely, maruFreight will match cargoes with vessels in the tramper market, assisting cargo owners to upgrade their supply chain management (SCM) through a one-stop service solution.
Many companies are using ICT to match supply and demand for diverse means of transportation. However, the problem is that a lot of time and effort is needed to make arrangements between shippers and tramper services in the maritime transportation industry.
The new company wants to solve this problem, by using Weathernews’ weather data analysis technology built over the past 30 years, with the experience and know-how of Mitsui in the realm of ICT.
As a result, cargo owners will be able to carry the cargo and upgrade SCM. For the shipping companies, the new company aims to assist them in reducing the need for air freight.
The service is expected to begin operations fin July 2018, initially on Europe and US, and later in will expand further.
