The Logistics Visibility Task Force, an initiative created by e-commerce giant Alibaba, the Chinese Ministry of Transport’s National Logistics Information Platform (LOGINK) and the International Port Community System Association (IPCSA), has released a new report entitled Enabling Logistics Visibility by Interconnecting Logistics Information Service Systems in a Standardised Way.
The report analyses the potential benefits of improving visibility within global logistics operations to data service providers and their customers, and the levels of standardisation required to support data interchange among regional logistics information systems.
Potential application use cases and services incorporating data exchange are explored in the report, which encourages related stakeholders to participate in the further development and implementation of international standards.
The Task Force points out that, while logistics information service systems such as the Port Community System (PCS) and Cargo Community System (CCS) are already provided by local or regional third parties within particular areas, operators need data to be able to flow between these different systems to create visibility across the global logistics chain.
As such, the group intends to work on the standardisation of these connections and promote the benefits that could accrue by interfacing disparate service systems.
“The report provides a basis for future continuing development,” said Hongru Zhu, General Manager of Alibaba’s standardisation department.
“The Logistics Visibility Task Force is working on the relevant pilot projects to explore standardisation of logistics information system data interchange and interface, to aim at reducing the cost of system development between logistics data providers and users and the cost of mapping data in different formats. Besides, users are expected to get more valuable data based on their specific requirements to improve the user experience.”
