Michael P. Onder, presenter

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Uses of Freight Technology
The Electronic Freight Manifest (EFM) Program
Overview
Michael P. Onder, presenter USDOT Talking Freight
Seminar November 17, 2004
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Table Of Contents

• Program Overview
• Concept of Operation
• Developmental Components
• Value to Stakeholders
• Data Storyboard

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The EFM program aims to improve freight
transportation across the supply chain by using
mature information technologies to promote
universal manifesting of data.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW

• The primary objectives are to improve the
  operational efficiency, productivity, and
  security of the freight transportation system.
• The program intends to meet these objectives by
  applying data standards, biometric technology and
  web portals to improve the speed, accuracy and
  visibility of information transfers in freight
  exchanges, and the security of the physical
  exchanges.
• The program builds on ITS freight operational
  tests, including the US Department of
  Transportations Electronic Supply Chain Manifest
  (ESCM), which demonstrated labor savings for a US
  domestic supply chain that translated to 1.50 to
  3.50 per shipment.

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Trends in international trade are fueling the
need for action.
PROGRAM OVERVIEW

• Freight volumes are increasing significantly.
• In the US, some project that freight volumes will
  increase 70 percent by 2020. Capacity strains
  demand efficient processes.
• Global freight volume is increasing, and is
  increasingly intermodal, containerized, and
  crossing international borders. This exacerbates
  the challenge of a lack of standards.
• There is greater awareness of the need for
  security.
• Destructive acts of terrorism have triggered a
  need for improved security. Risk management
  approaches stress the need for preventive
  measures.
• In most regions of the world, freight pilferage
  and tampering are common, difficult to detect,
  and meaningfully affect the economics of supply
  chain logistics.

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EFM respects these observations about the
business environment
PROGRAM OVERVIEW

• There are international, institutional and
  technical barriers challenging the efficient
  movement of goods across national boundaries.
  However, there is also a significant movement in
  the worldwide trading community to eliminate
  these barriers.
• The stakeholder community is very broad the
  essential transport provider industries are under
  significant competitive pressures. Private
  concerns are often technology laggards and
  low-margin operations.
• Partial technology solutions already exist in the
  marketplace, in the areas of identity management,
  supply chain visibility and tracking, and supply
  chain event management. EFM should bolster them,
  not compete with them.
• Numerous bodies have developed or are developing
  responses to the broad data standardization
  issue. EFM is addressing gaps in
  standardization, and is otherwise seeking to
  harmonize with existing efforts on the part of
  internationally-represented bodies.

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Table Of Contents

• Program Overview
• Concept of Operation
• Developmental Components
• Value to Stakeholders
• Data Storyboard

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Consider this notional representation of the
truck-air-truck supply chain, which, in the EFM
concept, begins with a request for shipment and
ends with successful delivery to ultimate
consignee.
CONCEPT OF OPERATION
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The core of the EFM are data messages, real or
virtual, that will overlay atop existing
electronic messaging infrastructures.
CONCEPT OF OPERATION
This conduit is a key component of EFM and is
referred to as the Freight Information Highway.
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An information supply chain occurs in parallel
with the physical chain. Various actors create
information transactions throughout the supply
chains duration, as required by business
processes.
CONCEPT OF OPERATION
Can include documents, messages, unstructured
communications, etc.
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The supply chain-spanning manifest is
incrementally built up as event milestones are
realized. Note these messages are virtual there
is no inherent requirement for a data repository.
CONCEPT OF OPERATION
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There already exists numerous commercial IS
applications and data repositories to store and
process this information.
CONCEPT OF OPERATION
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EFM is being designed to be generally compatible
with these systems, and will not replicate
information stored by them without reason.
Messages can be created on demand within EFM.
CONCEPT OF OPERATION
Unique Consignment Reference, which, as defined
by WCO Customs Cooperation Council, may be a
license plate identifier as per ISO Standard
15459.
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Table Of Contents

• Program Overview
• Concept of Operation
• Developmental Components
• Value to Stakeholders
• Data Storyboard

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The EFM solution includes these key elements
DEVELOPMENTAL COMPONENTS

• Standardize, structure and improve end-to-end
  flow of consignment-level data throughout the
  shipping portion of the international, intermodal
  freight supply chain.
• Augment existing data collected with data
  describing and verifying the identity of parties
  who are in possession of the consignment at
  each stage of the chain.

• Harmonize with existing government data
  requirements in this domain space.
• Develop and operationally test secured,
  multimodal electronic supply chain transaction
  systems with willing supply chain partners.
• Promote operational deployment by attracting
  early adopters, and achieve growth by letting the
  market observe the early successes.

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The EFM is defined by three pillars of
development. Each must be deployed for supply
chain partner networks to fully realize the
programs potential benefits.
DEVELOPMENTAL COMPONENTS
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ISO has approved a work item to create an
international standard for an intermodal freight
data dictionary and message set.
DATA STANDARDS

• Title Data Dictionary and Message Set for
  Intermodal Transfer and Tracking of Freight-Road
  Transport Interfaces, Number ISO 24533
• Scope "The emerging need for security of
  transport information makes it imperative for
  standards development organizations interested in
  freight data exchange standards to coordinate the
  development of those standards. Given that the
  motor carrier segment of the intermodal move
  constitutes both the origin and destination ends
  of the information flows it is not sufficient to
  only look at structures and formats of the land
  surface modes. It is also critical to share
  information between land surface and the other
  transportation modes to provide maximum benefits
  to the total supply chain. Given there are no
  international standards development
  organizations focusing specifically on land
  transportation data exchange needs for the
  international supply chain, ISO Technical
  Committee 204 seeks to fulfill that role and
  support the roles of other modal data exchange
  standards developers."
• Schedule Approved as new work item, February
  2003. Anticipated adoption as Draft International
  Standard, October 2005.
• Technology The Standard will be prescribed using
  Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1), which
  separates the specification of the message
  content (e.g., data elements) from the
  specification of the encoding or syntax of the
  messages. The syntactic definition of the
  messages using the Standard is unspecified. For
  example, adopters may choose EDI, EDIFACT or XML.

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The Data Standard uses the framework of the
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) Information
Interchange Model.
DATA STANDARDS
Interface dialogues data concept collection of
all the temporal sequences of messages, including
variants such as multiple responses, that are
used to accomplish the services that the
interface dialogue provides
Interface Dialogues
Messages data concept grouping of data elements
and/or data frames, as well as associated message
metadata, that is used to convey a complete unit
of information expressed as an ASN.1 module.
Messages
Data Frames
Data frames data concept grouping of data
elements primarily for the purpose of referring
to the group with a single name, and thereby
efficiently reusing groups of data elements that
commonly appear together (e.g. ASN.1 SEQUENCE,
SEQUENCE OF, SET, SET OF or CHOICE) in a message
specification
Data Elements
Data elements data concept some single unit of
information of interest (such as a fact,
proposition, observation, etc.) about some
(entity) class of interest (e.g., a person,
place, process, property, concept, association,
state, event) considered to be indivisible in a
particular context.
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DATA STANDARDS
The Data Standard is currently comprised of
approximately 75 data concepts, in five primary
functional areas
Functional Area
Example of data concept

• Bill-level Consignment Data
• Line Item Level Details
• Conveyance Data
• Possession Data
• Referential Data

• Shipper-AccountNumber
• GoodsItem-GrossWeight
• FinalDestinationAirport-location
• Possessor-Signature
• Event-DateAndTime

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To help engage the correct freight standards
organizations, we have mapped them and their
inter-relationships.
DATA STANDARDS
The EFM team also led the creation of a
Memorandum of Understanding in the supply chain
arena to foster coordination between the many
committees with roles in this domain.
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ISO 24533 is a first step towards a fully
intermodal standard that supports an integrated
cargo chain of possession. It should be viewed as
a Base Standard on which extensions can be built.
DATA STANDARDS
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EFM can potentially contribute to an
international supply chain cargo security
solution primarily by promoting freight
visibility. It can also help identifying
high-risk cargo to authorities.
SECURITY
Eight Critical Capabilities Required to Secure
the Cargo Supply Chain
This refers to tracking the movements of freight
to locate and isolate any freight requiring
inspection without disruption to the rest of the
system. EFM can provide this through its positive
identity management and end-to-end manifest.
Source Booz Allen Hamilton and Accenture, June
2003
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The EFM implements a Chain of Possession concept
of the supply chain at the consignment level.
SECURITY
Can include documents, messages, unstructured
communications, etc.
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The IT infrastructure that will enable the
virtual manifesting of data is referred to as the
Freight Information Highway.
FREIGHT INFORMATION HIGHWAY

• The FIH is a conceptual framework for sharing
  information among supply chain partners and
  government agencies. It arose as a critical
  project for government and industry collaboration
  in a forum sponsored by the Intermodal Freight
  Technology Working Group in 1998.
• The US FHWA will develop a concept of operations
  for a FIH by mid-2005.
• The FIH will intend to improve supply chain
  partner collaboration, reduce integration
  obstacles, foster ubiquitous visibility, and
  enable the deployment of universal and
  distributed applications.

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The FIH replaces direct data connections with
pipelines of virtual connections.
FREIGHT INFORMATION HIGHWAY
TODAY Disparate legacy systems each require
direct connections to support data collaboration
between supply chain partners.
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Conceptually FIH is a trusted messaging
intermediary suppor-ting a broad range of
stakeholder communications.
FREIGHT INFORMATION HIGHWAY
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Existing supply chains with functioning
communications would continue their registration
into FIH and use of accepted data standards would
allow them EFM benefits.
FREIGHT INFORMATION HIGHWAY
Example of an exchange that could continue
unaltered in an FIH environment.
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Table Of Contents

• Program Overview
• Concept of Operation
• Developmental Components
• Value to Stakeholders
• Data Storyboard

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Through interviews and the conduct of two
operational tests, the US FHWA has developed an
EFM value proposition.
VALUE TO STAKEHOLDERS

• EFMs potential value differs somewhat depending
  on a stakeholders role in the supply chain.
• Some benefits are of a general nature
• Information flow is expedited in some instances
  this will permit the physical freight to move
  faster (by reducing or eliminating
  information-related bottlenecks).
• Better end-to-end freight flow visibility through
  linked information systems that use standardized
  data elements and definitions of data elements.
  Among other benefits, this can provide feedback
  about a shipments safe delivery.
• Other initiatives are modally-focused or
  otherwise leg-to-leg in their approach. EFM is
  shipper-focused, therefore it is end-to-end in
  nature.
• Visibility should also reduce the threat of cargo
  theft.
• Opportunity to make access to cargo information
  more secure.

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Consider the stakeholders involved in a typical
truck air truck supply chain
VALUE TO STAKEHOLDERS
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These stakeholders may be grouped into four
classes
VALUE TO STAKEHOLDERS
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Potential benefits unique to SUPPLIERS
VALUE TO STAKEHOLDERS

• Support for quick and timely shipments by
  minimizing the need for paper-based
  communications.
• Error reduction due to less repeated manual data
  entry of bill data.
• Improved ability for transactional shipment
  management.

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Potential benefits unique to INTERMEDIARIES
VALUE TO STAKEHOLDERS

• Provide more flexibility to react to last-minute
  shipment changes.
• More complete and timely advance shipment
  information, which helps various resource
  planning activities.
• Opportunity to reduce dwell times at facilities
  where freight is picked up or dropped.
• Many are now drowning in paper. EFM could help
  alleviate this.
• Appreciation for the security features of a
  driver identification (e.g., TWIC) card.
• EFM could help enable some carriers better manage
  advance notification requirements that some
  Customs agencies now impose.
• An EFM-like approach is preferable over more
  comprehensive physical screening as a regulatory
  burden that government regulators might impose.
• Improved human resource management due to having
  workload data quicker.
• EFM levels the playing field by reducing the
  entry cost for small/medium transportation
  service providers to have technology-enabled
  information flows.

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Potential benefits unique to AUTHORITIES
VALUE TO STAKEHOLDERS

• EFM might help prevent a public incident, such as
  a terrorist event, through early detection of
  security issues (via threat assessments).
• Enhanced enforcement of safety regulations by
  previewing incoming loads.
• If an incident occurs, EFM can create a more
  robust data environment to assist event
  forensics.
• Government authorities permitted access to EFM
  data have a more standardized platform for
  analysis.

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Potential benefits unique to CONSIGNEES
VALUE TO STAKEHOLDERS

• Improved shipment visibility can improve
  inventory management processes, if the data is
  available and in a useful format.
• EFM can help enable dynamic decision making,
  reacting in near real-time to disrupted schedules.