Cathay Pacific Cargo has become one of the first carriers to pioneer two new milestones in the Cargo iQ Master Operating Plan (MOP).
The new milestones, FOW (freight out of warehouse control) and FIW (freight into warehouse control), will bring more transparency to the overall shipment journey in the MOP and better measurement of ground-handling performance in the handover between the ramp operating handlers and the cargo terminal, and vice versa, for imports and exports, at air waybill (AWB) level. The milestones are now operational at the Cathay Pacific Cargo Terminal in Hong Kong, with a view to rolling out across the network.
Cargo iQ is a not-for-profit membership group supported by IATA composed of major airlines, freight forwarders, ground handling agents, trucking companies and IT providers who work together to bring standardisation and transparency to the air cargo journey.
As part of that, the Cargo iQ MOP, which IATA has endorsed as a recommended industry practice, describes the standard end-to-end process of transporting air cargo from shipper to consignee. In the end-to-end airfreight shipment journey, these two new messaging standards, FIW and FOW, bring the total number of milestones in the MOP to 20.
Cathay Pacific has had a seat on the Cargo iQ board and has been an active contributor to the working group since it was first established as Cargo 2000, 25 years ago. Today, Cathay’s GM Cargo Service Delivery Frosti Lau is on the Cargo iQ board and has helped shape the new developments.’ We are delighted to be an early adopter of these two new milestones because we are dedicated to enhancing the quality control on our handling processes with the accountable parties,’ he said. ‘That’s why we are working closely with our counterparts to launch these milestones so we can better monitor the performance of the handover of shipments between our ramp handling and cargo terminal subsidiaries at Hong Kong International Airport.’
These are the fully owned subsidiaries HAS (Hong Kong Airport Services) and CPSL (Cathay Pacific Services Ltd), which operate the Cathay Pacific Cargo Terminal.
‘Information visibility has become a prerequisite in air cargo,’ said CPSL Head of Quality Aldous Chung. ‘CPSL pursues continuous service enhancement and looks for ways to refine our procedures to enhance the reliability and efficiency of our operations. By implementing the FIW and FOW milestones, we are enhancing the transparency of terminal operations, and this will allow us to measure the performance for continuous improvement better.’
Previously, the handover between the ramp and the warehouse needed users to compute the timings based on the ULD handover time taken from the raw data of the warehouse operating system. Now the same system can share that information at the air waybill level for every flight. This system enhancement was deployed in May, and the FIW and FOW messaging were activated at the start of July.
Cathay Pacific Cargo is now trialling these milestones in its own systems through an interface developed by Global Logistics System (HK) Co Ltd (GLSHK) to use the additional visibility from these milestones to measure and enhance performance to deliver a better service to customers, ultimately.
GLSHK CEO Simon Ng added: ‘GLSHK keeps investing in and improving the EDMP (Easy Data Management Platform) to support our partner airline, Cathay Pacific so that it can stay ahead in shipment data analysis and performance management.’
This is the ultimate aim of the MOP and its milestones: as Laura Rodriguez, Manager of Implementation and Quality Assurance at Cargo iQ, explains. ‘With this information, the industry will be able to identify pain points and make vital improvements to operational processes,’ she says. ‘It also gives us, for the first time, the possibility to visualise the complete warehouse process from start to end within Cargo iQ.
‘With its commitment to implement these new events, Cathay Pacific and its partners in Hong Kong are reinforcing the value of monitoring the point of handover from warehouse to ramp and vice-versa. We are currently supporting all our members in implementing these milestones and we look forward to seeing the benefits of uptake on an industry-wide scale.’
Cathay Pacific Cargo’s Lau added: ‘Despite the challenges we have faced over the past two years, we can be proud of our record in bringing transparency to the air cargo industry. This sort of integration is key to progress in the visibility of airfreight and continuous improvement in our performance. We look forward to rolling out these milestones globally and continuing to implement the Cargo iQ milestones with our contracted partners across our network.’
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