Freight & Logistics

Shipping is a vital sector to the global economy with over 90% of world trade carried by air, truck, air and sea shipments. Globalization places intense demands on the transportation and supply chain sector.

The application of information technology has revolutionized the freight and logistics industry with the ability to track inventory levels and shipments on a global basis via the internet. As a result, supply chain technology has been one of the fastest-growing segments in the information field.

• During 2011, the US transportation industry had revenues of about $1.82 trillion.
• In the US, employment in the transportation and warehousing sector totaled 4.292 million people in 2011.
• 90 per cent of global trade is carried by sea with a volume of 8.4 billion tons.
• Globally developing countries continued to account for the largest share of global seaborne trade (60% of all goods loaded and 56 % of all goods unloaded), reflecting their growing resilience to economic setbacks and an increasingly leading role in driving global trade.

One of the biggest challenges facing the global transportation sector is a focus on lowering carbon emissions and enhancing energy efficiency. New developments in transportation include the use of natural gas and electricity to fuel transportation and the development of energy-efficient light rail.

The rapid adoption of outsourcing has led many companies to turn to logistics services providers for their shipping support, warehousing, scheduling and distribution services. There is growing interest of governments in outsourcing their transportation infrastructure to private operators and private ownership.

The Freight & Logistics industry model set consists of Enterprise, Business Area, and Data Warehouse logical data models developed for companies providing transportation and shipping services.

The Freight & Logistics data models support the identification and tracking of shipments at multiple locations, routing, packaging, consolidation, documentation, warehousing/storage, intermodel transit, fees and charges, third-party responsibilities, carrier assignments and security.

This comprehensive single-view of transit information enables consignee, shipper, intermediate handlers and consignor to determine the current location and status of a shipment at any point within the transit process.