Cargo iQ executive director Ariaen Zimmerman has invited the International Air Cargo Association’s (TIACA) Shipper’s Advisory Council to talk to the International Air Transport Association interest-group.
He has invited the council to articulate their questions and try to “find a place to optimise” by speaking with Cargo iQ, which was rebranded from Cargo 2000 in March this year.
He was speaking today at TIACA’S Executive Summit at the Margaritville Resort in Hollywood Beach, Miami in the plenary session ‘Air cargo challenges from shipper’s point of view’.
Zimmerman says: “We need the shippers to help us improve the quality part of the equation. We have not been an industry that has been able to visualise quality enough. Quality is not the central focus which it should be.
“Bringing quality back into the equation needs the end people, the shippers. We need them to tell us what we need to know and we can work on it. We need their help.”
Cargo IQ now has 82 members, and its strategy is to engage more with different parts of the supply chain such as shippers and in the future small and medium-sized forwarders. Cargo iQ is focusing heavily on quality and innovation.
Shippers voiced their concerns at the session, which was chaired by TIACA’s shipper council chairman Lars Droog, who is manager of supply chain and general affairs at Tosoh Europe.
The council added members to the committee yesterday including Ericsson head of distribution logistics, Robert Mellin who was speaking on the panel and representatives from other industries including Chanel Fragrances and Beauté, Sandvik Machining Solutions, Marine Harvest RMT and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries.
The shipper group is aiming to get the voice of shippers at the forefront of the debate in the air cargo industry and better understand their needs, demands and challenges by working with them from all industries.
Droog explains to delegates at the session: “The main idea is to change the airfreight industry from a fragmented organisation to one where we have more collaboration, between all stakeholders – from shippers to forwarders and airlines and other parts of the supply chain – only then can we create the quality shippers require.“
He feels here are plenty of opportunities for airfreight in the view of shippers, but there are also challenges such as overcapacity and warns of the modal shift: “Shippers are moving shipments from airfreight, for example trade from Asia to Europe they are using train connections, while pharma companies require temperature control throughout the chain, but this is also an opportunity for airfreight.”
Other opportunities he says are technological innovations such as creating efficiencies using robots to move unit load devices, which shippers are introducing, but feels the main question the industry must ask itself is whether its add further costs to the air cargo supply chain.
