TradeLens has seen two additions to its ecosystem this week with Canadian Pacific (CP) and Royal Malaysian Customs Department (RMCD) enter into the blockchain-based platform, jointly developed by AP Møller-Maersk and IBM.
The Canadian railway company announced yesterday, 8 October, it has joined TradeLens, which is expected to help its intermodal shippers create, amend and share documents with other supply chain participants, including consignees, beneficial cargo owners, customs agencies, dray operators and steamship lines.
CP vice president and chief information officer, Mike Redeker, believes this move will improve CP's customer experience, saying, "global shipping is a profoundly complex business and TradeLens is improving the information-sharing processes that support the industry."
Earlier this week, Royal Malaysian Customs Department and the two TradeLens' creators announced the launch of their collaboration aiming to use the blockchain-enabled platform in Malaysia in order to modernise the shipping processes, create greater transparency and enhance customer satisfaction.
"By joining TradeLens, we aim to boost the efficiency, transparency and collaboration across supply chains," noted Dato’ Sri Abdul Latif bin Abdul Kadir, RMCD general director.
By digitising shipping processes, TradeLens will provide RMCD with an automatic and immutable tracking tool which, according to a statement, will lead to a highly secure, transparent, efficient and simpler workflow, with near real-time information sharing from a diverse network of ecosystem members.
Moreover, TradeLens will give RMCD more time to prepare for the arrival of shipments, which will enable more efficient and thorough fraud and forgery inspection as well as a more consistent and transparent revenue collection process.
"TradeLens will help us bring further visibility in a highly secure environment and will be a real asset for trade and transport facilitation, making Malaysia the preferred logistics and transport gateway in the region," commented RMCD general director.
With the Collaboration Application Programming Interface [API] concept, all logistic activities including trucking, warehousing, shipping and freight forwarding at both domestic and global levels can now be integrated which will also improve the sharing of data-rich information through a single platform, said the joint announcement.
