Parsippany, N.J.—June 18, 2013—INTTRA, a global multi-carrier network for ocean shipping, announced its INTTRA Change application, designed to reduce the millions of manual transactions ocean carriers process annually, INTTRA’s technology solution for structured and unstructured documents allows for expanded e-commerce adoption in ocean shipping.
“Manual processing costs are a major concern for both smaller shippers, as well as large, multi-national corporations,” said Ken Bloom, Chief Executive Officer of INTTRA. “Organizations are spending millions on advanced ERP or TMS systems, only to find that shipping information is being manually re-entered, often incorrectly, in carrier documentation centers. Not only do these mistakes delay shipments but they also have the potential to eliminate many of the efficiencies gained with automation and optimization. We consider manual transactions to be one of the weakest links in the management of global shipments and INTTRA Change provides a new option to eliminate its practice in the industry.”
A 2012 study conducted by INTTRA of 24 of the world’s largest ocean carriers revealed that more than 76 million shipping transactions are still processed manually. These transactions—including bookings and shipping instructions submitted via documents, emails and faxes—require tedious validation and corrections to errors made during manual data entry. This results in millions of dollars in added processing costs for carriers and shippers alike.
Unlike manual or Optical Character Recognition (OCR)-based solutions, INTTRA Change converts shipping data from a shipper’s existing reports or documents into the carrier required formats and submits them electronically directly to carriers. Any exceptions from validation checks, as well as amendments or cancellations, are managed by the INTTRA Change platform, enabling customers to immediately edit and re-submit transactions online. This capability eliminates back and forth emails or phone calls between carriers and shippers in order to process transactions. INTTRA Change also includes an easy to use, yet powerful, multi-carrier shipment reporting capability.
With INTTRA Change, shippers are given more control over data quality due to the automatic conversion of data and transmission to carrier systems through the INTTRA platform. Additionally, because the solution does not require a technical implementation or process change for shippers, IT organizations are not required to develop costly, custom system-to-system integrations or deliver additional training for end users. This removes several traditional barriers to e-commerce adoption.
INTTRA Change for Structured Documents is available immediately to customers using formatted documents, such as system-generated outputs from ERP or TMS systems and/or readable documents entered by shippers, to request bookings and submit shipping instructions to carriers.
INTTRA Change for Unstructured Documents will be available to customers later in 2013. The solution will complement the Structured Document offering to enable image files, faxes and unstructured email text to be converted into shipping transactions processed by INTTRA.
