#INTHEAIREVERYWHERE
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#INTHEAIREVERYWHERE |
| Vol. 20 No. 40 | Wednesday
October 13,
2021 |
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Truck Queues Solved Forever More |
First you need to know how to say Kale. It’s “Kah-Lee” this brand spelled Kale. Now you have it . . . It’s Kale By Golly. The rest is More—Amar More, company CEO, who explains to logisticians that with his program, “the only thing you have to lose is the wait! “Our community platforms for ports and airports have a huge opportunity with demand for digitization accelerating at a fast pace.” That was the youthful Amar More, Co-founder, Kale Logistics Solutions. Affable and helpful as he always is, Amar uses his 20+ years of experience in supply chain, consulting and technology industries to create digital cargo communities. Kale Logistics aims to reduce complexities involved in the cargo logistics processing at airports, seaports and customs checkpoints, using their cloud-native integrated platform and ERP solutions for all stakeholders in the logistics industry. While the (IATA) World Cargo Symposium continues in Dublin, it might be useful as events open up face to face, to share some of the important content still being delivered by industry leaders virtually. Amar More shared some thoughts and ideas at the virtual 11th Central Asia Trade Forum organized by USAID with the support of Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport that was conducted globally earlier this month October 4-8th. The virtual forum focused on the economic recovery from COVID-19 across a range of topical areas including tourism, transport and logistics, e-commerce, technology, trade agreements, water and energy sustainability, and women and youth. Amar was a keynote speaker and panelist on the session “A Digital Future – The Transport & Logistics Dimension”. Mr. More related the pivotal role that the air cargo industry has played in saving lives during the pandemic and the strides that were taken in digitization across the globe. He shared with a global audience of government leaders and others the role of Cargo Community Systems in the post-pandemic era in creating an efficient, visible and sustainable air cargo value chain. The emphasis of his dialogue was on why do we need these digital tools and, why now? Amar went on to explain the relevance of such platforms in the context of United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation & Electronic Business UNECE/CEFACT recommendation 33 on single windows. Critical thinking shared included, "how community platforms act as vital digital trade facilitation tools, not just to grow the business at specific ports or airports efficiently, but also a tool to create digital trade corridors connecting the airports to other partner airports." Mr. More also detailed the role of these platforms in land-locked central Asian countries for growing their trade. Finally Amar More delineated several commercial, security, customer service, efficiency, sustainability benefits to the different logistics stakeholders. “Deep tech interventions like Internet of Things (IoT), Drones, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning pertinent to the air cargo and logistics industry, further bolster the power of digital cargo communities,” Amar More declared. FlyingTypers spoke to Amar prior to World Cargo Symposium. FT: Hi Amar, we know that no matter what ever they call Kale, you would prefer to not be called late for dinner! But to business . . . as you have been quite active in ramping digitization at key India gateways during COVID what lessons can the airports in North America and other continents learn from Indian airports? AM: As I keep saying, last year saw 4-5 years of digitization packed into one and for an industry like ours which had been traditionally slow in adopting the technology it was a blessing in disguise. COVID-19 created several imperatives in the form of lockdowns, need for social distancing, need for reducing paper (which is a medium for transferring virus) and need for members of our industry to work from anywhere, anytime. The solution for all the above imperatives is indeed in creating digital logistics communities (also called cargo community platforms) around the airports and ports. Airport authorities are landlords and most across the world play a limited role in actual cargo operations (which they concession out to cargo handling companies). However, during the pandemic, the airports realized that they have to play a more active role in cargo as cargo was the lifeline of aviation. Airports in India leveraged the community platforms to ensure that congestion of humans / trucks at the airports is minimized, unnecessary paperwork was avoided with information being exchanged through the platforms, thereby reducing the probability of virus transmission. These platforms also ensured that the community could work 24x7 and virtually. This kind of digitization also helped the airports attract more cargo and hence generate more economic activity and jobs. Taking cue from the progress that the airports have made here, the airports globally and especially in North America, can now get more actively involved in creation of such digital infrastructure to facilitate trade and reduce covid transmission. With Kale, of course, the airports don’t need to invest any significant capital expenditure for such infrastructure which makes this even easier. FT: There is news that congestion is plaguing most North American airports and ports. How can your technology help these airports and ports in dealing with these issues? AM: Indeed, congestion of airports and ports in North America is making the headlines everywhere. To address the congestion, one had to understand the first principles of congestion i.e. why does the congestion happen. Some reasons are controllable and others are difficult to control. We have done very detailed analysis of congestion and have designed our platform to address the controllable factors of congestion. The key reasons of congestion are the backlog of trucks/traffic, paperwork being done at the airport, lack of visibility to truckers on whether their cargo is ready for pick up or not and finally absence of information to the handlers on how many trucks are coming and when at their terminals. Our platform addresses these factors, we streamline the truck flow through an Artificial Intelligence-based truck slot management system, reduce paperwork being done at airport through electronic information exchange through innovative machine learning-based services, give visibility of readiness of cargo to the truckers and the wider community through mobile apps and empower the handlers with knowledge of expected volume and type of traffic. We believe that this technology has helped the world’s most constrained airports and can certainly be the right solution for the airports and ports experiencing congestion. FT: Can you share a working experience with a major gateway in North America? AM: I am sure you are aware that we created North America’s first airport cargo community platform at the world’s busiest airport: Hartsfield Jackson Atlanta International airport. This concept is relatively new in North America and the community is in “Education” mode. Needless to say there are early adopters who have seen the opportunity and have latched on to the next generation technology for creating efficiencies. We are currently in active discussions with several large airport communities (around 10) on the east and west coast to help them deal with these issues. We believe that these communities will move from the “Education” phase to “Adoption” phase in the next 1-2 years. As we speak, globally, we are engaged with around 40 airport and port communities. FT: Now we understand Kales is gearing up digitization for Boston? AM: We are kicking off the pilot phase with a few use cases of our cargo community system with the cargo stakeholders in Boston. It is indeed exciting to see the community gearing up for digital transformation. FT: How do you think your technology will help the small and medium forwarders deal with the challenges posed by the pandemic? AM: Community systems in a sense democratize the technology. SME forwarders who have very little capital to invest in state of the art technology to deal with shortage of resources, excessive paperwork, congestion issues etc; can benefit from a community platform where state of the art technology is available to them on purely pay as you go model. The access to not just technology but also cybersecurity through a community platform is a huge gain for SME forwarders who hitherto didn’t have this opportunity. FT: Whilst taking a closer look at your offering, would you kindly offer some useful advice in the meantime to busy airports and cargo communities across the world and especially in North America? AM: Quit the fence sitting!!! Pandemic, like every adversity, has created phenomenal opportunity to accelerate digitization. The tools are right there for the taking and you don’t have to worry about capital investments. If you miss this bandwagon and your competitor doesn’t, then it will create irreparable loss of attracting more cargo business and creating more job opportunities. If ever there was the best time to create digital cargo communities it is now. Start now! Tirthankar Ghosh |
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 Vol 20. No. 37 Chrome Jerome For Lyon Chuckles for September 29, 2021 Cargo LAX Bad To Worse Webber Factfinding As Airports Signal Change Mighty Wind Of Human Spirit Elliott Paige on 911 Big Don Lamy Says Goodbye |
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Publisher-Geoffrey Arend
• Managing Editor-Flossie Arend • Editor Emeritus-Richard
Malkin Film Editor-Ralph Arend • Special Assignments-Sabiha Arend, Emily Arend |
Send comments and news to geoffrey@aircargonews.com
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