Web Services Bring
Ocean Shipping
Up to Web Speed
Jeff Pattison is chief infor-
mation officer of INTTRA
Inc., a multi-carrier e-com-
merce platform for the
ocean shipping industry.
INTTRA ( www.inttra.com)
is designed to enable ship-
pers, freight forwarders,
third-party logistics
providers, brokers and
importers to electronically
plan, process and manage
magine what it must have been like to experience the revolution in the shipping world that
occurred when sailing vessels gave way to
steam-driven ships. By dramatically reducing ocean
shipping time, steamer technology completely
changed the expectations that importers and
exporters had about delivering fresh goods and
maintaining tighter shipping schedules.
Today, the industry is facing another sea change
with an impact that may be even more dramatic: the
use of Web services as a competitive advantage for
shippers, carriers and logistics service providers.
Web services technology can enable the delivery of
“fresh” shipping data so you can work in real time,
rather than making business decisions based on
outdated information.
The benefits of Web services for importers and
carriers include:
• Tracking changes in sailing schedule data as
they happen
• Consolidating shipping information and other
intelligence from multiple sources
• Working more productively and profitably
with shipping data
• Making it easier to comply with global shipping regulations (like “ 10 + 2”)
• Providing faster and more dependable service
to your customers
Perhaps most importantly, the global economic
downturn and higher energy costs demand that
every company needs to work harder and smarter
to turn a profit. Web services can help you leverage
your technology investment to reduce your cost of
doing business, raise efficiencies and provide your
company with a competitive advantage.
I
Crossing Over from the Consumer World
Up until a few years ago, the business world led the
way in technologies that would eventually find
their way into the consumer world when they could
be produced and distributed more cost-effectively
for home use. Now, it seems to be the other way
around. It’s time for the shipping world to adapt to
the way Web services are being used in the busi-
ness-to-consumer world.
Let’s take a closer look at how Web services
technology may already be affecting your life. Have
you ever checked the status of an order on ama-zon.com? Ever bid on an item auction on ebay.com?
Perhaps you’ve visited continental.com to make
sure a flight was going to arrive on schedule before
driving to the airport to pick up someone. And if
you factory-ordered a BMW Mini automobile, you
could view its progress step by step at the factory—
up to the date of delivery—right from your kitchen
table. In each of these examples, you use the internet to get the latest information instantly—and
you’ve come to expect to get it all with just a few
mouse clicks, whenever and wherever you want.
These are just a few examples of how the immediacy and ease of using Web services enhance and
enrich the user experience. Bear in mind that, while
consumers aren’t your direct market, all your customers are consumers when they go home after
work each day. Plus, as the next generation of “Gen
Xers” enters the workforce, they’re going to be
demanding this level of Web services technology at
work because it’s how they grew up at home and
school.
Besides just delivering information faster and
easier, Web services enable multiple data sources to
be combined into one convenient resource. For
example, when you check on the status of a Continental Airlines flight, the arrival or departure time
you see may be determined by combining information about the weather conditions, airport security,
and the condition of that particular plane and flight
crew into a single data view.
Why can’t we accomplish this in the shipping
world? The answer is: we can—and we must—with
Web services.
Shaking up the Shipping World
If the world happens in real time, why should the
shipping world move in slow motion? Delivering just-
in-time data via Web services can have a dramatic
impact on global shipping and the way you do busi-
ness. Shipping information can flow as quickly as the
