Ocean visibility: Lifting the fog over water

In shipping, efficiency and predictability are the whole lot. That is particularly true but often harder to perform in relation to coordinating global imports and exports across the ocean.

Port congestion, en-route changes and damage along the voyage are hard to avoid completely. Nevertheless, for shippers, freight brokers and 3PLs, it creates more friction when disjointed data from ports, terminals and ocean carriers disrupts shipment visibility. Stakeholders need a method to access data and track their many shipments’ statuses and conditions in real time, anticipate delays, and reply to issues as they arise.

During a recent Industry Update, FreightWaves’ Isaiah Buchanan sat down with Robert Derin, director of product management at Descartes Macropoint, to debate how Descartes MacroPoint, a one-stop supply chain visibility and capability solution, is making visibility data more actionable for shippers, freight brokers and 3PLs. 

In its latest product announcement, Descartes MacroPoint shared that its ocean visibility solution now provides US Customs Import data in an accessible way previously unavailable through visibility platforms, providing transparency into data and locations throughout the whole ocean shipping process, in accordance with Derin.

With MacroPoint, users can view, analyze, predict, and communicate the status of any shipment in real time using multimodal visibility, predictive analytics and an automatic communication platform. For ocean carrier data, users can receive alerts regarding origin and destination port statuses, in-transit locations, and temperature monitoring. The answer also provides users with access to key performance indicators about their network to maintain tabs on performance and make decisions that drive optimization.

The ocean visibility solution recently expanded to integrate US Import Customs data into the platform. This includes 50+ Customs Responses reminiscent of Filing Status, Holds, ISF Filing and Customs Release. Users are in a position to work with any customs broker or filer they like and still have access to their customs data feed of their MacroPoint product.

Along with this update, MacroPoint clients can now integrate other Descartes solutions into their system, including customs declarations and security filings, to remain compliant. They moreover have the choice of tapping into wide-ranging global trade intelligence, including import and export databases from ports and governments around the globe, providing more information to make higher business decisions based on actual data. 

“The nice part about being a part of the Descartes family is leveraging all of our products and expertise to [provide] a novel and differentiated offering,” Derin said.

Ultimately, greater accessibility in a shipper’s one-stop ocean visibility solution allows stakeholders to extend their very own efficiency and do the identical for purchasers. 

To request a demo or learn more about Descartes MacroPoint, click here.