New partnership aims to improve secure transport of chemical cargo via blockchain
On March 9, 2023, a statement was released by the Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN), to announce the cooperation of COSCO SHIPPING Lines (COSCO SHIPPING), Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL) and Shanghai Research Institute of Chemical Industry Testing Co. , Ltd (SICIT), to improve the safe transportation of chemical cargo by leveraging blockchain technology.
Tthe companies’ aim is to achieve a proof-of-concept through technology that contributes to increasing transport safety in the shipping industry. As best practice in the industry, special cargo with designated goods, such as chemicals and lithium batteries, should be certified as safe to transport before they are handed over to logistics and shipping companies for export. This is important because carriers will manage the transport based on the corresponding certification to reduce the risk of potential accidents and protect the crew.
For exports from China, SICIT is one of the main organizations authorized to test and issue safe transport certificates. Traditionally, shippers would obtain the certificate from an accreditation body and provide the document either as a paper copy or as a scanned copy to carriers. However, for carriers and subsequent transport companies in the supply chain, certificates shared in this form can be difficult to verify, and thus entail risks such as mislabeling and fraud.
As stated by Gaojun Wang, Director of Information Technology Department at SICIT, in addition to increasing transportation safety, the streamlined digital process also increases overall efficiency, minimizes human errors caused during manual data entry, as well as provides greater transparency for all parties across the supply chain.
Leveraging GSBN’s blockchain-enabled platform, a new streamlined process has been designed to ensure that Secure Transport Certificates and the information they contain can be verified from the original source, and the information is accurate and reliable. To demonstrate this, the four named companies have developed a successful proof-of-concept with sender Midea, one of the largest manufacturers of electrical appliances in the world. Via GSBN, both COSCO SHIPPING and OOCL will be able to verify certificates obtained by Midea for their cargo directly with SICIT.
Yoyo Ju, Lead of Order Fulfillment Center – Doc Management at Midea, highlighted that GSBN and SICIT provide assurance that other goods loaded on the same vessels have also been tested, properly certified and properly handled, to minimize potential risks to our own cargo .
GSBN’s secure, blockchain-enabled infrastructure ensures that the certificate data is immutable and structured, which can be verified as the single source of truth. This helps to reduce human error, increase the safety of the cargo and accelerate the process overall. In the future, it may also facilitate the advancement of automated verification, as well as the circulation of trusted certificate data stored on the blockchain among multiple parties.
The shipping industry is undergoing a once-in-a-lifetime digital transformation leap.
…so Bertrand Chen, CEO of GSBN
With Internet of Things (IoT) technology increasingly being integrated into shipping, the data generated from connected devices can be further leveraged to provide real-time visibility and traceability. The combined properties of different technological solutions used will ultimately contribute to increasing transport safety.
