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Indian Ports Community System
Introduction:
Indian Port Association has
decided to establish a centralized/uniform Port Community System covering all
its major ports, as a part of its collective, collaborative and co-operative
approach to EDI implementation, for the benefit of all the members of the Indian
Port Community. The proposed system will link through the internet all members
of the Port Community including Exporters, Importers, Custom House Agents,
Shipping lines, Shipping Agents, Stevedores, Transport operators, Banks, Ports,
Terminal Operators, Customs, and Other organizations / companies in the maritime
logistics chain. The proposed system will facilitate exchange of vital
information needed by each member from other members of the community to perform
their functions effectively and to improve the overall efficiency of maritime
trade and transportation cycle.
International Scenario:
In many ports and regions across the globe, Port
Community Systems have evolved over a period of time and have proved that
significant gains could be made by sharing data with the Port Community. Some of
the port communities have adopted message switching i.e. enabling the exchange
of standardized EDI messages from one partner to the other(s) through a
centralized, intelligent message switching facility.
But the most successful ones have adopted
both message switching and maintaining a central database facility (repository
of information) containing transportation information from multiple sources
which is accessible through a secure and personalized web browser by everyone
who needs to support or to access information. It is seen from their
experiences that many of the community systems have revolved around either
Customs or Ports as the nodal agency  or hub. All
other players of the community have aligned their systems to suit these two main
players. In some places, these hubs have become separate neutral entities of
their own, sustaining themselves on revenues earned through subscriptions and
transaction charges. As the technology progressed and e-commerce became a global
business enabler, these systems are being upgraded to provide for the members to
transact their business, avail services and track their status easily and
quickly in a single and integrated platform.
Approach
for implementation:
In order to improve the
reliability and minimize the time to implement such a complex system covering
many agencies, it is proposed to draw on the experience of similar Port
Communities already established and stabilized globally. A team of IT export
will study the requirements of Indian Port Communities, identify a well proven
system which can be customized to suit the requirements, conduct a Pilot
Implementation in Mumbai – JN Port Communities and then replicate the same in
all the Indian Port Communities.
Need for the
project:
To maintain the competitiveness of the Indian exporters in the global market,
the GOI is taking a number of trade facilitation initiatives. One of them is
EDI, to enable inter organizational exchange of data.
Many companies have significantly changed the way they do business by
implementing ERP & SCM models and expect others in the supply chain to match
their speed and accuracy.
Exporters / importers are placing higher demands on the entire supply chain to
maintain their competitiveness in the global market.
Leading carriers, consolidators, freight forwarders, and agents around the globe
are beginning to introduce electronic commerce to serve their customers better.
These companies recognize that global visibility is critical to customers and to
the success of their supply chain logistics.
All these changes require the links in the supply chain to provide on line
information, facility for instant booking of facilities, faster booking
confirmations, frequent updates on status, alerts on delays and facility for
quick and secure way of making payment.
In the Indian Port Community, though some members of the community have
computerized their internal operations, it is difficult for them to transfer
data electronically to all their trading partners. Therefore, exchanging data,
getting status updates from trading partners or transacting business with other
members of the community take place manually resulting in re-entry of data into
their internal systems at the cost of speed and accuracy affecting their service
levels to their customers. As the dominant players of the community (Customs,
Ports, Banks etc.) begin to adopt electronic exchange of data and e-commerce
practices, other members of the community are forced to comply. They may reach a
stage where they may have to maintain links with many agencies for doing their
business.
The availability of broadband internet connection at affordable costs in many
major cities of the county has provided accessibility and uniform interface to
all the members.
Hence, integrating all activities across maritime transport chain (from cargo
origin to destination) electronically into a common Port Community System, which
meets all the requirements of stakeholders, is current, consistent and easily
accessible through the internet is the need of the hour.
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Benefits:
This centralized web based Port Community System is expected to give the
following benefits to the stakeholders:
It will :
· Be a single source, integrated and standardized platform for meeting the
requirements
of all members of community
· Function as an e-commerce platform for the members of the community.
· Provide adequate, accurate and timely information
· Improve the response time of stakeholders to their customers
· Improve track and trace efficiency
· Provide shipment/ service visibility
· Generate alerts about delays or problems
· Enable moving towards similar procedures across all communities
· Provide for opportunities for re-engineering, adopting best practices
· Be easily accessible and secure
· Be easy to learn, operate and support;
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