The Dock Management System, which has reduced waiting times at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport by more than 20%, will be implemented across WFS’ major North American locations over the next 12 months with Atlanta, Miami and Boston next on the list.
Trucking companies, consignees and forwarders can create their own slot booking for cargo drop-off and recovery at WFS stations, optimising truck yards and reducing congestion.
It is a feature of WFS’ ePic Enterprise Solution, which is operational at 52 stations across the US.
ePic has been designed ‘by cargo people for cargo people’ for collaboration and simplified communication within the cargo community.
It is 1 of 5 new features on the ePic platform with the others being Warehouse Progress Monitoring, which uses live flight data from Flightaware to track arrival and departure information and the breakdown and build-up of cargo.
Integrated Scale connects iPads with weigh scales to enter shipment weights automatically, eliminating potential errors involved in manual processes.
ICS2 integration and functionality is being rolled out to assist with compliance to the incoming EU Customs regulations.
The final new feature is barcode integration where reading applications are installed in ePic to support installations of the RAFT Fully Automated Pallet Storage System to read and inventory cargo for input from the warehouse and dispersal to delivery agents.
Shawnpaul Booth, Vice President Cargo NOAM at WFS says ePic is ahead of other handling software because it constantly evolves based on expertise in the field.
He says, “The improvements we make are driven by users. And, the fact that ePic is designed to be quite a simple system, means building APIs is very quick and easy, which is leading airline customers to ask us to implement it within their own locations because they see the efficiencies where we work with them.”
ePic allows WFS to use a single system to handle multiple airline customers in multiple facilities using one centralised solution, simplifying operational processes, training requirements and maximising efficiency.
It incorporates import and export cargo and flight management, office and warehouse functions to communicate cargo movements in real-time, and integrated eScreening to ensure Federal Cargo Screening requirements are met and documented.
Cargo iQ integration connects cargo and data through live updates of air waybill status through standard IATA messaging.