UPC/EAN designed the shipping container code to work with EDI transactions. The detail data in the ship notice or despatch advice can include the shipping container code identifiers, with the lowest level of packaging (e.g. cartons) describing the quantities of goods contained inside. When the customers receive the shipment, they scan the shipping container bar codes and match the data to the ship notice before accepting the items into their inventories.
All shipments into ports worldwide using containers should use this technology, and the inspectors should have access to all the electronic data about the shipments being exchanged. Any discrepancies between the physical cargoes and the electronic documents would alert the inspectors to potential problems that need further investigation.
Many smaller companies complain about the cost of EDI, which is a legitimate concern. But Internet-based technologies have made EDI more affordable. Companies can send now EDI data over the Internet using either e-mail or Web-base protocols, known as AS1 and AS2 respectively. The ebXML specifications, approved last year, also provide a framework for the use of XML to exchange business data securely and reliably, covering business process definition, registries, messaging, trading partner profiles and agreements, and semantic interoperability.
What are we waiting for?
With the technologies for tracking containers and their cargoes well established and in wide use, the question arises, what are we waiting for? The report says that vulnerability studies on the 50 largest U.S. ports are not expected to be completed for another five years, so the ocean transport industry and the transportation security authorities seem to be lacking a sense or urgency to address the vulnerabilities.
Will it take another catastrophe to get government and industry to start addressing these glaring vulnerabilities? With the technology readily available and with the consequences on industry and the public so dire, it would seem that improving cargo security would be a logical choice.
Full disclosure: the author is director of publishing for the Data Interchange Standards Association that serves as secretariat for ASC X12, the accredited standards body in North America for electronic business messages, and is co-author of a book on ebXML.