West Coast ports support ‘Supply Chain Information Highway’

The Port of Oakland and The Northwest Seaport Alliance voiced their support Tuesday for the Port of Long Beach’s “Supply Chain Information Highway” digital initiative, a free-to-all service that delivers data for shippers and other stakeholders to integrate into their own systems to track cargo and allot resources.

The innovative data solution was unveiled this week at the 2022 Trans Pacific Maritime (TPM) conference in Long Beach, one of the industry’s premier gatherings of transportation and logistics professionals. The digital infrastructure allows authorized participants to draw upon the data and use it in their own dashboards to predict cargo arrival, plan equipment deployment and improve efficiencies.

“The Supply Chain Information Highway is an inclusive solution that provides a common corridor for cargo data status from various sources to intersect in order to provide secure end-to-end visibility to thousands of customers and stakeholders that interact with the supply chain every day,” said Port of Long Beach Deputy Executive Director Dr. Noel Hacegaba at a TPM panel discussion on public agency data initiatives. “It can be integrated into any proprietary system to enable users to make operational decisions, plan resources and minimize delays, and best of all, it will be free to the end user. We welcome the support of the Port of Oakland and Northwest Seaport Alliance. Their participation will help extend the reach of the Supply Chain Information Highway across the West Coast and eventually the nation.”

“Creating a shared digital platform will provide decision makers timely, comprehensive and quality data,” said Port of Oakland Maritime Director Bryan Brandes. “Having this cargo visibility tool can help speed the supply chain and set a digital foundation for improving goods movement.”

“The Northwest Seaport Alliance is glad to work alongside the Port of Long Beach and Port of Oakland to address supply chain challenges. We look forward to this project increasing visibility in cargo delivery and trade opportunities along the West Coast,” said John Wolfe, CEO of The Northwest Seaport Alliance.

The Port of Long Beach and its technology service vendor in recent months have been gathering and “normalizing” event data for an initial group of stakeholders including a marine terminal operator, transportation providers and key beneficial cargo owners. Members of the testing phase group were invited to transmit data, query data, and validate the results.

The Supply Chain Information Highway is being developed by St. Louis-based UNCOMN. The company has worked for more than 10 years supporting the Department of Defense’s U.S. Transportation Command, U.S. Army Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, and U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command in areas such as data analytics, cloud application development and cloud data environment development.