ECTA works on visibility

POWER OF THREE

DIGITISATION • TANK CONTAINER OPERATORS ARE TAKING MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS, AIMING TO DEVELOP A STANDARD FORMAT FOR DATA COMMUNICATION

THE PROMISE OF end-to-end visibility in the supply chain offered by innovative digitised systems has been slow to come to fruition; in the past the process of digitisation has been held up by a reluctance on the part of the various players in the supply chain to share information but, more recently, it has been the lack of common standards that has prevented the full realisation of the benefits of digitisation.

In order to break this logjam, three major European chemical logistics companies – Bertschi, Den Hartogh and Hoyer – have come together and, under the aegis of the European Chemical Transport Association (ECTA), have launched a work group to improve supply chain visibility in the transport of liquid chemicals in bulk. The ECTA work group is aiming to develop an ECTA Transport Data and Message Definition Framework to improve end-to-end supply chain visibility and collaboration.

The initiative was sparked by the three tank container operators in March this year and at its scheduled meeting in September the ECTA board agreed to proceed. Since then the work group has been augmented by experts from GCA, Rinnen and Alfred Talke.

The initial aim is to generate common message definitions for estimated time of arrival (ETA) and other milestone messages; more broadly, it will provide a framework of common definitions for all involved business partners in the logistics chain to allow the sharing of digital information, and will look

THERE NEEDS TO BE A COMMON ELECTRONIC LANGUAGE at an interoperable underlying technology format. It is hoped that this will lead to the optimisation of inbound and outbound logistics flows and will therefore be of benefit to all players in the chemical supply chain.

LET’S GET MOVING That is a feature stressed by Joep Aerts, business unit director, liquid logistics for Den Hartogh, when he spoke to HCB during the European Petrochemical Association’s (EPCA) Annual Meeting in Berlin last month. “This has got to be an open standard,” he said. “Everyone can join.”

At the moment, each company optimises its own operations, meaning that logistics service providers need to use different data standards for each customer. Moving to a standard format will reduce waste for all players in the chain – and Aerts said this approach could be extended to other parts of the supply chain such as tank depots, tank cleaning facilities and rail operators, and make the system an “orchestrator” for the entire chain.

But, Aerts says, “Speed is critical,” and he does not want the work group to just be a focus for discussion – it needs to produce something quickly, he stressed. But there will be problems to be overcome: to work properly, the system will require both vertical and horizontal collaboration and this latter aspect presents what Aerts said is “an extremely big challenge”.

Putting the work under ECTA may well help as the Association has recent experience through its leading work in the development of the electronic EFTCO Cleaning Document (e-ECD), which moved from concept to implementation remarkably quickly.

The ECTA work group swung into action this month and promises to share its output with shippers and IT solutions providers as soon as the framework is ready for further validation, hopefully in the first quarter of 2020. Those keen to hear more will be able to meet many of those involved during the ECTA Annual Meeting in Düsseldorf on 14 November.