Category Archives: Technology

Freightwalla has launched a free supply chain automation platform, an intelligent shipment tracking service for MSME businesses. An advanced predictive analytics system will help exporters/importers to combat risk associated with shipment delays and improve supply chain efficiency free of cost. The intelligent cargo navigation service backed by the latest ML algorithm will be available to all shippers, including local and global exporters and allied parties. Businesses can avail of the service at zero cost for tracking up to 20 containers per month. According to the Maritime Executive, on average, “Four out of every ten containers (39 per cent) missed their scheduled sailing. At the same time, some significant carriers and ports reported rollover rates of over 50 per cent.” Whereas according to Sea-Intelligence’s Global Liner Performance (GLP) report, “Global shipping line schedule reliability has dropped to 34.9% in January 2021, the lowest in history.”

At the Dubai Air Show, Boeing signed a memorandum of understanding with Ethiopian Airlines that will help the airline to bring cost savings to its maintenance operations with Boeing’s 787 landing gear exchange program. “As the fastest growing airline in Africa, much of our success depends on our ability to seek out new ways to drive operational efficiency in our processes,” said Tewolde GebreMariam, Group Chief Executive Officer, Ethiopian Airlines. “As the commercial airline market continues to recover, we believe these services offered by Boeing provide a reliable way to realize more stability and predictability in managing our overall maintenance operations and costs across our fleet.” With the landing gear exchange program, Boeing will guarantee availability of 29 landing gear shipsets wherever and whenever they are needed to support the Ethiopian 787 fleet, enabling more efficient and cost-effective maintenance operations. The Boeing 787 landing gear exchange program greatly simplifies the contracting, scheduling and management of the landing gear overhaul process. Through this program, air carriers can quickly exchange landing gears that need to be repaired or overhauled with a replacement set of certified landing gear from a dedicated resource pool maintained by Boeing. By managing all parts, engineering and technical aspects of the program, Ethiopian Airlines will have the flexible exchange solution they need to repair and replace landing gear while lowering inventory costs. Boeing will also provide access to loaner Landing Gear shipsets and parts during unexpected AOG situations.

Locus announced its strategic partnership with NextBillion.ai. This collaboration combines Locus’ expertise in automating complex supply chain decisions with NextBillion.ai’s industry-leading location tech offerings — map data management service, map APIs, SDKs and tools. The companies will accelerate global supply chain solutions and drive sustainable impact through their technological capabilities. “Together with Locus, we’re working to enable use cases for businesses with location at their core. Our goal is to offer hyper-localized solutions that address gaps in the mapping and geospatial data industry. We’re grateful to Locus for their partnership and support,” asserted Ajay Bulusu, co-founder of NextBillion.ai. “Our shared vision of providing full stack solutions and scalable enterprise tech solutions in logistics is a key driver of our partnership with NextBillion.ai. We are confident that with NextBillion’s data layer and Locus’ AI & ML application capabilities we will unlock new supply chain solutions and empower enterprises in this space”, said Nishith Rastogi, Founder and CEO of Locus.

Sanad, the global aerospace engineering and leasing solutions leader wholly-owned by Mubadala Investment Company PJSC (Mubadala), has secured a new US$ 100 million evergreen revolving credit facility with First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) the UAE’s largest bank and one of the world’s largest and safest financial institutions. The new financing deal, signed during this week’s Dubai Airshow 2021, extends Sanad and FAB’s 10-year relationship which has now seen the two UAE-based companies close over US$ 950 million worth of combined agreements. The various financings are extended in support of Sanad’s global spare engine leasing and component access portfolios. Troy Lambeth, Group Chief Executive Officer of Sanad, said: “Our longstanding banking relationship with FAB, the oldest and largest within Sanad, has played a key role in our growth as a reliable financial solutions provider within the industry. Working closely with each of our banking partners, we have been well positioned to provide attractive long-term financing solutions to our customers since our launch. We are delighted to see our relationship with FAB expand to this new facility as we now look to extend our product and service offerings further across the industrial services sector.”

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) welcomed the commitments towards strengthening climate action made at COP26, and called on the global efforts to decarbonize aviation to be supported with practical, effective government policies. Management of international aviation’s climate commitments sits outside of the COP process and is the responsibility of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). Nevertheless, airlines at the 77th IATA AGM in Boston, October, agreed to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, in line with the stretch Paris agreement target to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees. “Airlines are on the pathway to net-zero carbon emissions, in line with the Paris agreement. We all want the freedom to fly sustainably. Reaching net-zero emissions will be a huge task requiring the collective effort of industry and support from governments. The pledges made at COP26 show that many governments understand the key to rapid progress is to incentivize technological change and fund innovative solutions. This is particularly true of sustainable aviation fuels, which will play a major role in addressing aviation’s environmental impact—they need the right incentives from governments to ramp-up production,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.

ECU Worldwide, global multi-modal logistics major launched an intensive industry study on ‘The state of API adoption within the freight forwarding market’. The study helps discern the impact of APIs on freight forwarders and understand the forwarders’ perspective on API adoption. This report is informed on a global survey of over 120 commercial freight forwarding companies. Here are some key takeaways from the report: * Technology limitations and data streamlining are major headwinds to API adoption – The logistics industry has been slow on the uptake with technology, which holds true with data capturing and building inter-stakeholder connectivity. * Lack of awareness is a significant deterrent to data standardization – The discussions on data quality go hand-in-hand with data standardization, as disparate data that do not conform to a particular set of standards will be essentially unusable. * Human-intensive operations likely the earliest workflows to be API integrated – Respondents pursuing data integrations do so by standardizing workflows within their organization in line with other industry stakeholders—both upstream and downstream. * Improved visibility and operational efficiency are low-hanging fruits of API adoption – Visibility and efficiency have been recurring themes within the survey, reflecting the positive correlation forwarders see with API integration. Tim Tudor, CEO ECU Worldwide, said, “Digitization and innovation will play a strong role in building visibility and creating integrated end-to-end solutions for cargo owners. ECU Worldwide wants to encourage the creation of a technology enabled eco-system and supply-chain focused tools to reduce the costs of logistics and make India’s exports more competitive. Stronger technology adoption in the logistics sector will also improve transparency, reliability and predictability in the supply chains across the globe.”

Kuehne+Nagel taking forward the issue of sustainability by becoming the first air logistics provider with an option to purchase Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) for each shipment and avoid carbon emissions. This new add-on is available for the customers on all Kuehne+Nagel air freight quoting platforms and channels, allowing customers to choose carbon neutral transport via their preferred online or offline quoting method. With the newly launched offering, all Kuehne+Nagel customers can easily opt for SAF to be used instead of fossil fuel for air transport and benefit from net-zero carbon emissions air freight services – regardless of airlines used, origin or destination. As SAF still produces some CO2 emissions, carbon neutrality is achieved by substituting each litre of jet fuel kerosene used with 1.33 litres of SAF.

To become carbon emission-free, Zypp Electric-an EV logistics tech delivery start-up claims to build India’s 1st EV D2C business. “We are extremely proud to be the first EV D2C Business in India. Our goal is to achieve 100% electrification in last-mile logistics and to assist businesses from many sectors in becoming emission-free,” said Akash Gupta, Co-Founder & CEO of Zypp Electric. Zypp electric caters to a wide range of enterprises, including e-commerce companies, e-grocery, Kirana stores, and restaurants, and handles end-to-end last-mile deliveries – from stores to customers’ homes – with various differentiated tech-enabled custom solutions, including the use of e-vehicles, service timing fixes, IoT-enabled battery swapping infrastructure, etc. The start-up at present has a fleet of 2000+ electric scooters and provides 500k deliveries each month. Zypp Electric made its debut in India with its first B2B heavy electric scooter, the ‘Zypp Cargo,’ in July 2021. This heavy-duty scooter, designed for last-mile logistics is capable of carrying up to 250 kg and has a 40 Ah battery and can go 120 kilometers in one charge. It can accommodate multiple battery systems and have swappable batteries.

cargo.one announces the launch of a real-time data and analytics product called cargo.one360. This will provide cargo.one partner airlines with unique insights to maximize their sales performance in digital channels. cargo.one360 helps airlines to accelerate the airlines’ adoption of best practices in digital sales, delivers valuable customer insights, and reflects market changes and trends to facilitate better tactical and strategic commercial decision-making. As the Boston Consulting Group recently noted, data-based steering can boost net profits by up to 12 percent in the first year. While an increasing shift towards digital sales predates the pandemic, Covid-19 has supercharged this trend: volatile schedules, constrained capacity, and disrupted pricing mechanisms have sent customers seeking transparency on offers, and instantly confirmed bookings.

Union Minister Piyush Goyal, while reviewing the functioning of the Government e-Marketplace (GeM), warned officials to watch out for business malpractices like ‘cartelisation and collusion’ and suggested the GeM team to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to avoid them. The Minister for Commerce & Industry, Textiles, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution said AI would further simplify the system and as the volume of operations grow, AI would be needed to bring the most appropriate buyers and sellers together for transactions, according to a government statement. Goyal asked for bringing more transparency to the system and added that operations should be audited regularly to ensure that all technical and financial aspects of GeM stay strong all the time. He also asked officials to make GeM more user and commerce friendly so that ease of doing business can be further promoted. Officials were also directed to significantly reduce and cap the transaction charges so that more traders are attracted to the GeM portal.