DCSA proposes new booking process, bill of lading

Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA), a neutral, non-profit group established to further digitalisation of container shipping technology standards, today published the beta releases of DCSA Standards for the Booking Process 1.0 and the Bill of Lading 2.0.

Along with these releases, DCSA unveiled a website where interested parties can go to review and provide feedback on the beta versions. The website is available at www.dcsa.org/feedback. The website will allow a three-month public review and feedback period. Contributors can select the standard they would like to review and choose from four types of comment:

*Suggest a change
*Suggest a clarification
*Suggest an addition; and
*Others

Once the review period is over, DCSA will revise the standards based on inputs from the site and release new versions within three months.

"The publication of booking process standards is the second step towards end-to-end digitalisation of the shipping documentation process after the publication of DCSA electronic bill of lading (eBL) standards," an official statement said. "DCSA Standards for the Booking Process 1.0 will enable frictionless sharing of digitised shipping data, eliminating the need to rekey booking information into the eBL. DCSA Standards for the Bill of Lading 2.0 are aligned with DCSA booking process standards to enable automatic uptake of booking process data."

Thomas Bagge, CEO, DCSA, added: "In 2021, only 1.2 percent of bills of lading issued by carriers was digital. Fortunately, this leaves room for improvement of the B/L process, which will have a significant and positive impact on international trade. Eliminating paper each year will improve sustainability, and digitising documents will increase the accuracy and availability of digital data, which will benefit everyone along the supply chain, including customs organisations. We are encouraged to see top level government initiatives designed to drive standards adoption and data exchange across the globe such as the recently announced Freight Logistics Optimization Works (FLOW) initiative from the Biden administration."

FLOW includes 18 initial participants across the supply chain, and some partners include the Ports of Los Angeles & Long Beach, FedEx, CH Robinson, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), Prologis and DCSA.

DCSA member carriers include MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, Evergreen, Yang Ming, HMM and ZIM.