Two of the largest container carriers in the world, Hapag-Lloyd and Ocean Network Express (ONE), have completed integration onto TradeLens, a blockchain platform launched by IBM and AP Moller – Maersk aiming to ease global trade with digital tools for information sharing and secure collaboration.
Since the completion of multiple pilot projects as well as the integration, Hapag-Lloyd and ONE, the world’s fifth and sixth largest container lines respectively, are now working to help their clients and business partners across all major geographies benefit from TradeLens’ ability to increase efficiency and improve access to information.
The two shipping companies follow CMA CGM and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), which both completed their pilots and integration in October 2020, and five other carriers already inputting shipping data into the TradeLens platform.
Additionally, TradeLens continues to rapidly on-board new organizations from across the shipping industry, recently adding shippers and importers including Van den Ban Tires which use the platform to address back office inefficiencies and improve the visibility of cargo.
Recently, KLog.co also became the first freight forwarder in Latin America to join TradeLens to improve efficiency, decrease operational costs and advance its goal of opening up international trade to all companies in the region.
“TradeLens technology holds great potential to help enable the digitisation of supply chain processes and documentation handling,” said Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of Hapag-Lloyd, and went on to add, “Our customers will clearly benefit from increased transparency, accuracy, speed and efficiency in their supply chains – leading to reduced cost.”
Jeremy Nixon, CEO of ONE, commented, “We believe TradeLens can bring together all parties in the supply chain to the digital ecosystem where customers can get seamless, transparent and secure sharing of shipping milestones and trade documents. With its open standards and open governance, it can benefit our customers and the entire industry to drive for digitalisation and automation.”
TradeLens offers shippers and freight forwarders direct, permissioned access to digitised, multi-carrier visibility and documentation processes through a single platform, reducing the need for paper-based processes and giving participants in global trade a single, up-to-date picture of the flow of their goods, according to an announcement.
Through the TradeLens platform, network participants can connect their supply chain partners to the digital platform as well, allowing data and documents to be published and consumed more quickly and only among permissioned parties.
“A huge barrier to global trade has long been the inability for customers to securely share crucial information regarding the status of goods in an easily accessible and transparent way,” said Mike White, CEO GTD Solutions and Head of TradeLens. “By addressing this problem, the TradeLens ecosystem has grown rapidly, and the onboarding of Hapag-Lloyd and ONE along with their customers helps extend the value of TradeLens across the entire TradeLens ecosystem.”
