Honour Lane Shipping Limited is a Hong Kong-based shipping company which handles a wide variety of cargo - including FCL, LCL, consolidation and break-bulk cargo - to various cities and ports in China and throughout the world.

Customers worldwide have come to rely on Honour Lane’s door-to-door and one-stop services. These include arranging customs clearances and insurance, providing trading consultation and acting as a local trading agent for overseas companies involved in the import and export business.

Last year, Tradelink started working with Honour Lane to better manage bookings and documentation, track cargo and negotiate freight services across multiple logistics service providers and shipping lines.

Thanks to Tradelink’s electronic platform, the error-prone process of manually moving heavy and complicated shipping documents between parties has become a thing of the past.

Standing out from the crowd

Tradelink worked with Honour Lane to create the Electronic Shipping Order Service (SO) - a business-neutral, web-based platform that enables companies involved in any aspect of shipping to manage bookings and documentation, track cargo and even negotiate freight services, all from a single integrated process across multiple logistics service providers and shipping lines.

Tradelink’s SO was especially designed and engineered to offer comprehensive access to multiple shippers, forwarders and consolidators, as well as over 25 prominent carriers. Because of the one-stop access to a simple and user-friendly SO Web form or Excel input form, shippers are able to enjoy convenient communication with multiple forwarders and carriers. On the other hand, forwarders are also able to use different message structures and formats from multiple consolidators and carriers via a one-time connection with SO.

The document platform supports communications at both the house and the master levels. At the house level, shippers and forwarders can use exactly the same user interface to exchange ocean transportation documents with multiple forwarders or consolidators. At the master level, shippers, forwarders and consolidators can exchange ocean transportation documents with multiple carriers in a single connection.

As an independent electronic commerce service provider, Tradelink is uniquely positioned to launch its SO because the confidentiality of client information is assured. The SO can also accommodate special needs, e.g., for example, it may extend its reach to carriers that are not covered by the two major portals.

SO user benefits

Tradelink’s SO allows shippers, forwarders, consolidators and carriers to process booking documents via a user-friendly SO web interface. Besides standard data input, which is done by information fields, the SO web interface also accepts data that has been prepared by using its Excel Input Form. This form, which is one of the many features Tradelink added to the SO platform after reviewing feedback from users, allows shippers and forwarders to prepare their shipping documents offline, then send them to the SO in batches.

Sarah Lee, who is in charge of USA/Canada operations at Honour Lane Shipping Ltd, notes that the Excel Input Form is similar to many of the prevailing industry documentation methods, and bypassed the need for a wholesale change in user habits.

The SO also features a Message Exchange Gateway (MEG) that extracts information from the forwarders’ own Freight Management System (FMS) for preparation of various shipping documents.

Tradelink’s choice to use the XML format in the SO is “progressive” says SL Chang, senior consultant at Dynamic Tech Consultants, which provided FMS to Honour Lane and integrated it to MEG.

“The XML format allows integration of FMS into the SO, and subsequent amendments to be done a lot easier,” he says. “Because it’s so easy for participants to integrate their system with SO, it will obviously boost the popularity of this particular system. It also opens the possibility for XML to be adopted as an industry-wide standard message structure for data exchange in different areas involving multiple users.”

FMS’ ability to copy data to MEG is crucial for Honour Lane, because it saves time and also enhances data accuracy by eliminating the need for manual retyping.

An immediate benefit of XML-formatted shipping particulars is the seamless adherence to Automated Manifest Service (AMS) requirements for exports to the USA and the Advanced Commercial Information (ACI) regulations for exports to Canada.

The SO Service also offers users status checking, essentially allowing all parties involved in the shipping order process to check the status of their documents and the progress of the cargo on the SO website.

Easing AMS worries

Tradelink’s new SO also helped resolve a potential problem in shipping into the US. In December 2002, the Customs and Border Protection arm of the US Government introduced a new Automated Manifest System (AMS), which required electronic transmission of cargo information imported into the US 24 hours before the cargo is loaded

In April 2004, the Canadian government followed the example set by the US. The Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) introduced the Advanced Commercial Information (ACI) with requirements very similar to the AMS.

The US Government opened its AMS to a number of certified service providers that included Tradelink, although document senders are ultimately responsible for the accuracy of the information submitted.

Tradelink’s AMS features

Tradelink’s AMS meets these requirement and more with unique features. These include:

• E-mail notification: This allows users to specify the response messages received in the AMS Inbox for delivery to user-defined e-mail addresses, giving users the flexibility to receive the predefined message without logging into the AMS. Integrated tightly with Tradelink’s SO, Tradelink’s AMS shares the same generic interface. If the user also subscribes to Tradelink's SO service, the house bills-of-lading prepared in the FMS can be forwarded directly to Tradelink’s AMS platform via SO’s MEG. This greatly enhances the integrity, efficiency and accuracy of transmitted data and improves data quality, reducing the chance of penalty and clearance delay due to data error.
  
  
• Competitive pricing and FREE amendment: Tradelink’s AMS pricing is very competitive, with discounts available for high-volume users. In addition, Tradelink’s AMS amendment function is free, while carriers charge high levies for every amendment request.
  
  
• Easy Amendment and Move Voyage functions: The amendment function allows users to add new bills-of-lading, cancel applications, replace total quantities or revise the contents of submitted bills. The interface is designed to allow users to handle all types of document amendments simultaneously.
  
  
• Central set-up, remote branch access: This feature allows users to register their AMS service at their head offices and access their AMS information from offshore or branches.

Popularity is key for success

Honour Lane’s relationship with Tradelink started with the AMS service. “AMS was a new requirement, and at that time that there were not a lot of vendors. We chose Tradelink because it is Hong Kong-based and it has staff ready to answer our enquiries and help us out in our own time zone. Tradelink’s backing by the Hong Kong Government also provided us the confidence that the help they render is closer to what the Customs departments of the countries we are dealing with, ” says Wicky Chan, vice president at Honour Lane.

Tradelink’s background and track record in developing various e-commerce applications and diversity of services provided, also helped. “They expect the data interchange in SO and AMS will be extended to other Tradelink services to take better advantage of enhanced data integrity through electronic commerce applications,” says Mr Chang.

Carrier portals like INTTRA welcome Tradelink as a partner because it can extend its reach. “We are delighted to partner with Tradelink with the long-term ambition of providing the most streamlined and productive e- commerce solutions in the marketplace,” says Tony Wines, sales director at INTTRA.

Wines said INTTRA aims to be a strategic partner with Tradelink, so that the combined expertise of the two organisations can continue to provide high-quality e-commerce solutions specifically for the shipping industry.

“Our ability to work directly with a consortium of global carriers also fits with the need for Tradelink to continue to develop new and innovative solutions for their customers,” he said. “We look forward to our continued development with Tradelink on a long-term basis.”