Pictured: Lothar Moehle, Executive Director of Cargo iQ
Founded in 1997 as Cargo 2000 to improve supply chain reliability, Cargo iQ has grown to more than 60 members. For this year, two major projects have been underway to provide visibility on the ramp and for road feeder services.
The freight planning and monitoring milestones to improve visibility between the warehouse and the ramp, Freight into Warehouse (FIW) and Freight out of Warehouse (FOW), have been implemented by Cathay Pacific Cargo.
Adding FIW and FOW to the Master Operating Plan provides visibility and planning capabilities to the shipment handover between the warehouse handler and the ramp handler.
Across the transportation chain, there are several interfaces and handover points between stakeholders, explained Lothar Moehle, with forwarders handing over to airlines or ground handlers, and once the ground handler has done what they need to do, they hand over to the ramp handler.
A similar process happens in the reverse for imports. The handover is not standardised, said Moehle.
“So far, that was a grey area, which led to many possible arguments between the two parties saying you gave it too late or it wasn’t ready. Now we have set a milestone, which is important for our planning of the road map. We have created a message to exchange information to say that the job was done,” said Moehle.
It has been handed over to the members to implement, and it is up to them to implement it.
Moehle said that Cargo iQ cannot force members to implement it but it will be in the new audit checklist where Cargo iQ will keep tabs on whether it has been implemented or not.
The road feeder service is another important project. Services connecting an offline station with the online station have been a blackhole, a hole which Cargo iQ is closing.
A specification has been created with clear descriptions of who is responsible for data exchange between whom and at what point of time. The pilot scheme is underway to see if the specifications are appropriate.
Three parties, Emirates SkyCargo, Jan de Rijk Logistics and CargoHub are involved. “They are now in the stage in which they identify a number of shipments and how the messaging can function. Ultimately, we want to have them implemented among our entire membership on a global basis but we are still in the very early stages of the pilot. We have figured out that, yes, the messaging part works, but we need to establish more messaging to be clearer about the information exchange,” said Moehle.
The messaging standard for trucking is different from that of airlines, which is why CargoHub have been called on to translate the messages.
Exchanging information means no more black holes where no one knows what is going on or that there is a problem. Moehle gives an example of if a forwarder can see an issue between the offline and online station, they can contact the airline to find a solution.
Moehle said, “Knowing means you can do something, if you have a black hole and don’t know then you cannot react. That’s the whole concept of Cargo iQ.”
Looking to the future
For 2023, Cargo iQ will continue its road feeder service pilot, and finding a way for door-to-door shipments to be tracked better is another focus area.
Moehle said that even large forwarders can have countries that they do not cover with their own people, rather, they use an agent.
“We need to get that agent into the planning and measuring process, which, today, we don’t have a solution for,” he said.
It is a work-in-progress, so Moehle did not want to commit to a date, suggesting the second or third quarter, depending on the members, stressing that Cargo iQ is a team of four people working with its members to find solutions.
For a long time, Moehle worked at Schenker and many Cargo iQ requirements went into the development of systems, so much so that some people will be unaware that the systems are as a result of Cargo iQ.
“That’s how they have been trained and the result automatically becomes the rewarding function that is coming out at the end of the day to show to the customer and themselves where the quality gaps are and where they can improve. What you don’t measure, you can’t improve, and quality improvement never stops.”
This article was published in the December 2022 issue of Air Logistics International, click here to read the digital edition and click here to subscribe.