Freight forwarding is the fastest and compatible logistic service to reach any destination around the world nonetheless freight service is being placed behind the roadway logistics. International Air Transport Association (IATA) has revealed that containerized air cargo declined from 3.1 percent in 2000 to 1.7 percent in 2013 and it has almost remained same in 2015.

It’s been seen, goods get shipped by air are mostly high value commodities, time bound delivery or time sensitive. Freight logistics seem classified under limited scopes, if freight forwarding is to be kept as an option for specific category of deliveries then logistics industry will be stagnant with no progress.

Given figures show the contribution of freight logistics in world trade shipments.So far technology has come across another level of milestones but many things left behind with a need of implementation. Looking ahead, ongoing headwinds continue to point to another year of saturated growth in 2016 as a whole.

Inter-continental shipping across the globe is highly counted on either Sea or Air transportation while domestic freight logistic would be expected to grow simultaneously in the modern era of uplifting internet trading but yield result is still under the line of break-even point.

While in 2014 transportation demand grew by 6.3% but supply ratio to meet demands was less around 5.9% caused by several internal and external issues such as rate cut of route expansion, decentralized systems, no global-regional partnership.

In certain regards, customers are also losing interest for high cost shipment and no scheduled air cargo delivery, if freight logistic service was able to deliver a shipment in minimal time duration then the gap between local logistics providers and freight forwarder would expand the operational time.

1. Reasons behind downfall of international freight logistics :

Whenever freight forwarding comes to mind, it comes with huge costing and security issues therefore other way of logistics have a competitive advantage, other cost contributors are related to the different business requirements associated with areas such as the product, origin/destination, equipment, lanes. Uncertainties exist every day with every shipment, but the better your understanding of your air freight requirements and spend, the easier it will be to effectively understand and control your costs.

Irregular documents submission and shipments report is a real face trouble maker in freight logistics system because manual data entries and co-loaders undefined performance may lead to lose of packages and time taking for delivery. In instances where there are no document’s requirements or procedures, you may need to obtain the information from the carrier.

No possible way to track co-loaders performance as packages move across warehouses and airlines by any Mobility solution where multiple different shipments apparently can be tracked and automate freight challenges.

Example: If few packages are supposed to import using ocean freight from China but there is a need to import from Vietnam using air freight, or export to Dubai using Break-bulk service for oil drilling equipment then how to generate synchronize tracking data of all the logistic workers associated into it to move that shipment where Break bulk cargo is often shipped on pallets which is more labor-intensive and time-consuming to load and unload than container cargo.

While from one airport to another airport packages are shipped, unresolved challenges start reflecting right there because receivers or workers mostly go through the traditional way of communication, if some packages left behind nobody would be concerned of it, and customers don’t find profound faith in logistics providers.

Furthermore a gap comes upon to hold problems between regional logistics providers and freight forwarders, now if a logistics company having freight forwarding service across globe and same data can be processed in their entire system all over then this problem might be reduced a bit but still a question arise, is that company having the same tool to exchange data in multiple systems? and finding regional logistics provider to merge up is also a new challenge because functional business model may be different between both parties now if any air transporter merge with ground handler then how data can be exchanged between these two parties and in international logistics mostly joint ventures are found to be successful in a short period of time if they can maintain the entire process efficiently.

Example: SATS and Oman Air form cargo handling joint venture in Muscat & Malindo appoints Hong Kong handler.

Security changes in the air transport are another issues rising in today’s business, somewhere cutting rate of routes to different regions. Particularly for those regions new regional partnership is required and new partnership would be requiring system integration so problem goes on. Sort of import or export license required depending on the commodity and ultimate destination of the cargo, and port to port, port to door, door to port, or door to door services draw out a complex workflow.

2. How to optimize the global freight forwarding challenges?

Most discussed point about rising air cargo cost is fuel charge where as other hidden charges also keep the cost high, now regulating fuel charge depend upon every country’s government, what best can be done to optimize the cost here, looking at the reasons of high cost solution is to be efficient enough to pre and pro freight invoice auditing and reporting, billing to the shippers, data visibility by which undeniable gap in terms of use of manual process in international freight payment verses domestic freight payment will be minimized. Freight payment data can be useful to improve procurement and network optimization.

Online way bills to the customers to associate with the system which are considered as house way bills now the challenging phase is when freight forwarders move their packages by airlines they receive a master way bill to manage all the packages in one bill till it reach destination. Now the solution should be one tool to gather all these information including package in scan and out scan report, package delivery data which can be maintained online to ensure real time and accountability of shipments.

Freight NX which can track co-loaders performance and packages moving across warehouses and airlines.

An integration module Freight NX which can create a bridge between regional logistics providers and freight forwarder to extend the access of exchanging data in multiple systems though the same data can be rolled out to the third parties involved in the logistics.

Customers expect on time delivery, immediate distribution of emergency needs, effective customer assistance and products handled carefully ensuring they arrive in good order. With extensive expertise and a proven track record handling high value, time sensitive, hazardous and temperature controlled materials can be efficiently shipped.

LogixGRID Solution Freight NX which can be integrated based on cloud to edit and upload custom clearance and monitor the entire happenings for door to door services, a new age solution should be able to make break bulk easy and less time consuming.

Summary :

In near future air transportation can lead logistics industries to the summit irrespective of high valued goods movement, inter-country, intercontinental shipments and shorter lead time delivery. All it needs a sharp edge technical move like Freight NX to optimize the stumbling blocks of freight logistics. Freight NX is a cloud based mobile application integrated with LogixERP. Big logistics providers across globe have overcome the freight challenges for giving services to several E-com giant using Freight NX.