ARCHITECTING SIMPLIFIED, COST-EFFECTIVE AND FLEXIBLE ELECTRONIC AIR WAYBILL FOR FREIGHT FORWARDERS

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BUSINESS CHALLENGE

We analyzed the business needs.

As the air cargo industry continues to add capacity, it becomes extremely imperative for the airlines to raise their level of efficiencies. Typically, in air cargo operations, ground handling systems consume significant amount of time and cost. Increased cargo volumes create a cascading effect on various stakeholders, warehouses and locations on the ground, making cargo handling complex, unpredictable and expensive. Today the air cargo industry relies heavily on the paper air waybill (AWB) to move cargo from origin to destination. Paper-based processes involve challenges in the form of redundancies, lack of visibility and control, and more critically, compromised security, accuracy and speed.

THE SOLUTION

We designed a simple, flexible and cost-effective e-Air Waybill

Patram, the Mphasis e-Air Waybill (e-AWB), is a best-in-class web-based solution which follows the IATA mandated program. It is offered as Product-as-a-Service, facilitating the data information exchange across the e-freight supply chain between freight forwarders/agent, airlines and ground handlers, using the latest technology and scalable architecture. Patram can be accessed anytime, from anywhere, as it is hosted on AWS (Amazon Web Services). The cloud-based application architecture leverages next-generation technologies, and provides a simple, modern, reliable, secure and performant platform for speedier cargo handling, which is key to improved revenues and enabler of the e-freight supply chain.

Patram is based on webservices model in which services interact with reliable and secure AWS RDS SQL Server database in its own VPC, instead of Microsoft SQL Server RDBMS hosted on-prem or in virtual servers in EC2.

AWS Cloud Watch is used to collect, access and monitor performance and operational data in the form of logs and metrics from a single platform. AWS CloudTrail service helps in monitoring, surveying and operation auditing along with risk monitoring of the AWS user accounts, and AWS SES is used for e-mail services. AWS S3 bucket is utilized for UI deployment, which makes the services and UI loosely coupled, resulting in independent hassle-free deployment. AWS IAM secures the authorization and authentication of the user, and the access security to the application is ensured (https) with AWS Certificate Manager.

FEATURES OF PATRAM

Submits electronic master and house air waybills to airline cargo systems
Creates and issues CSD
Manages air waybill stock
Generates electronic air waybill documents, cargo security declarations, cargo receipt, warehouse receipt and house manifest as PDF
Transmits IATA compliant XML messages to airline cargo system
Acts as a single system for forwarders/agent, airline and ground handlers
Tracks and traces real-time air waybill status
Converts Cargo-XML to Cargo-IMP compliant adhering to IATA standards

THE OUTCOME

Multiple benefits offered by Patram

Increased quality of information for accurate, flexible inter-change of electronic data in the cargo life cycle

IATA compliant electronic messages for efficient, secured and effective data transfer between airline and forwarders

Improved customer service though faster cargo processing

User-friendly GUIs allowing forwarders to fill air waybill, CSD information in a traditional manner

Efficient tracking and tracing of air waybill information details

Reduced CAPEX through hosted web-based portal for forwarders to connect and communicate with airlines