May 20 - The Antwerp Port Community System (APCS) has introduced a new breakbulk application called Cubix, that it says will make today's copying and recopying of data a thing of the past.
At today's opening ceremony of the Breakbulk Europe conference, the port said that the Cubix app will lead to more transparent and faster communication about cargoes, enabling them to be handled more efficiently.
The Cubix app works with the forwarder that initiates the transport of cargo making a single declaration about the consignment via the app, which issues a unique reference for the consignment. This is then used by all subsequent parties, such as the ship's agent and terminal operator, with all further instructions made via the app.
All parties that participate in the app will be sharing the cost. "We work on the basis of ten euro cents per tonne, shared between the forwarder, the ship's agent and the terminal operator," says John Kerkhof, manager of APCS.
The Cubix app is currently running as a pilot between ArcelorMittal Logistics, Fednav and NHS, with a more general roll out being planned. Kerhof says that by the end of 2015, there will be fairly wide coverage.
