Managing International Ocean Freight

Whether importing or exporting FCL, LCL or groupage type containers, MercuryGate's enterprise TMS gives you complete control over the entire process. The solution enables you to book the steamship line, generate all required documentation, track the shipment while in transit and settle all appropriate charges – all within just a few mouse clicks.

The TMS breaks each route down to its individual building blocks while maintaining an overall view of the movement. Legs, activities, and containers are planned and managed as the goods move through the transportation chain.

Managing Ocean Movements – Transportation Legs

MercuryGate's enterprise TMS delivers comprehensive, multi-mode, multi-leg management.  The process begins with the shipment and the container(s).  The shipment may require multiple legs:

  1. Door to Origin Port
  2. Origin Port to Destination Port
  3. Destination Port to railhead
  4. Railhead to railhead
  5. Railhead to Door

Different carriers may perform each of these legs and may be paid in different currencies. All the costs of each leg are captured, providing you with total landed cost. The landed cost can be shown in any currency.

SPH shipping screen

Figure 1: Screen shot of US Import including multiple legs delivering a shipment and container

Managing Ocean Movements – Activities

MercuryGate's enterprise TMS delivers robust, user-specific workflow management capabilities.  Each step in the shipment life-cycle may require certain activities to be performed.  For example, a user may be required to perform an activity by a planned date at a particular location. 

Each activity's cost can be included in the total landed cost of the movement.  Activities include customs clearance preparation, import/export documentation, 10+2 filing, creation of delivery orders, various vendor payments and many more.  A sample workflow could be:

  1. Door to Origin Port
    1. Steamship line booking
    2. Create paperwork (MBL, HBL, commercial invoice)
    3. File export documentation
    4. Supply 10+2 info to US Customs
  2. Origin Port to Destination Port
    1. Steamship line payment
    2. Prepare customs clearance
  3. Destination Port to railhead
    1. Create Delivery Order
  4. Railhead to railhead
    1. Monitoring updates
  5. Railhead to Door
    1. Create Delivery Order

shipment activities screen

Figure 2: Screen showing workflow activities, responsible parties, planned dates, locations, etc.

Managing Ocean Movements – Visibility

MercuryGate Control Tower Visibility gives top down and bottom up end-to-end shipment visibility of multi-modal, multi-leg shipments from point of origin to destination for all trading partners.  The Control Tower captures data operationally from various parties and centralizes management capability while continuously monitoring the status of all the events.  

Using the Russian doll concept, MercuryGate TMS maintains the link between containers, skids, cases and units – to the serial number level.  This is known as the "MercuryGate Golden Thread" – complete visibility at any time in the shipment life cycle.

This decision support and operational tool enables rapid, automated, real-time responses to changes in shipment status and customer demand.  The information gathered throughout this process provides the data necessary for rich analytics and sophisticated event management and reporting.

my maps screen

Figure 3: Map showing route of inland China move.  Map may be displayed based on any mark or identifier such as container number, SKU, etc.