October 16, 2000

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XML schemas
XML Conversion: Vital To A Freight Company's Success

Freightdesk.com's xml apps use client-specific business rules to manage data dependencies

Continued.... pages 2 of 2

More on freight management:

Industry Optimizes Supply Chains (9/11/00) Marketplaces Help Shippers Pare Costs (9/4/00) Computer Reseller News: Fueling A Rise In Freight Costs (9/25/00)

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"Our customers take information from us on demand, and we translate our internal XML code into whatever format they want," Gavin says. "Some get Excel spreadsheets, some get Adobe PostScript reports, and some prefer straight XML." Only about 10% use XML internally today, but FreightDesk.com's prompting should convert more of their customers to XML soon.

Some customers' data may cause problems because it lacks sophistication. Freightdesk.com has half a dozen customers that use it to process data for re-distribution within their companies, Gavin says. "They'll send us good data for three months, and then we'll get one bad record." FreightDesk.com calls each customer when bad data arrives, explains the problems, and offers to help to fix the data.

XML can't do its work until clean data is transferred into XML files. For many of its customers, FreightDesk.com must go into their business, map their business processes, and move them to new technologies. "Most companies are invested in older technologies, so we're their platform to enable processing on the Web," Gavin says.

To Gavin, a transaction isn't one piece of processed data, but a large collection of data such as an airway bill. "A chain-of-custody document for transportation may contain over 100 line-item details," he says. "A transaction is actually hundreds of data elements and hundreds of what would typically be considered transactions." FreightDesk.com now runs more than 25,000 transactions--big ones--per month.

Gavin makes it sound easy. "We go to their systems; grab their data; clean it up; run it through our database; create all transactions necessary, such as freight bills, documentation, and costs; then put the updated information back on the customer's system," he says. "This requires absolute trust on the part of our customers. We can't make a mistake, so we're careful about data."

The FreightDesk.com management team includes customs brokers, technology specialists, and the U.S. military's chief logistical planner during the Persian Gulf War. CEO Quartel was the youngest U.S. Federal Maritime Commissioner in half a century. But the transaction horsepower comes from Gavin's former company, Accurate Computer, which merged with FreightDesk.com in February this year. FreightDesk.Pro, FreightDesk .Office, and Tracking.com went live in March. MyFreightDesk, a browser-based personalized view into FreightDesk.Pro and FreightDesk Office, is still under development.

One of Gavin's customers asked about adding a Web-based tracking system to its freight-forwarding software about five years ago. "We realized shipping was the ideal customer for real-time data exchange on the Web," Gavin says.

Gavin became fascinated by the Web and Internet and changed the company model from client-server to Internet during 1996 and 1997. "Even for standalone programs, we started writing everything in Active Server Pages," he says.

"At the start, filling in forms was high-end stuff," Gavin says. Starting simply, Gavin's basic-shipment tracking applications took information in and copied it to the Web. "Three cargo location updates a day were plenty for ships and plane cargoes," he says.

The crucial step came when Gavin's group was hired to make tracking collaborative. Overseas agents at the time were forced to use international phone calls and faxes to track shipments--and both are expensive methods.

Therefore, Gavin began to link the five critical parties in every shipment: domestic and overseas forwarders, domestic and overseas consignees (intermediaries who control the shipment for a time), and the buyer. That software evolved into FreightDesk.Pro.

"We help make it cheaper for the freight forwarder so they can make it cheaper for the customer," Quartel says. "We reduce errors and cost and eliminate 80% of repetitive data-entry and messaging costs such as long-distance calls and faxes."

As a Federal Maritime Commissioner, Quartel's goal was to deregulate ocean shipping. And at FreightDesk.com, the best deregulation tool has turned out to be the data standard called XML.

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