Page 50: of Maritime Logistics Professional Magazine (Nov/Dec 2017)

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CARGO SECURITY

Nowhere to Hide

Cargo Security goes high tech in its quest to account for cargo damage. Two different frms bring the same goals to the supply chain.

By Joseph Keefe he need for vessel and cargo tracking has always been history. Entire voyage time logs can now be virtually con- necessary. But, the methods and equipment to accom- structed using AIS data, and savvy e-commerce and technol-

T plish those tasks haven’t always been available. Before ogy frms will happily (for a fee) provide you with myriad the mid-1990’s, for example, without AIS transmitters, a ves- e-platforms to do just that, and more. On the other hand, while sel that missed its ‘LayCan’ at a particular port by just a few you might know where your container or cargo might be at a hours could credibly misrepresent its position at sea, absent specifc point in time, determining its condition is quite anoth- any corroborating evidence by its prospective charterers. And, er. So, too, is the uncertain task of fnding out what happened there usually wasn’t any. Hence, if you didn’t know where the to it – and when that damage occurred – long after the fact. ship was, you probably didn’t know where your cargo might That’s about to change. be, either. SpotSee, a manufacturer of precision impact indicators and

By 2002, AIS had gone global and the rest is, as they say, recorders, has developed a comprehensive line of devices that 50 Maritime Logistics Professional November/December 2017 | |