International trade is an important part of every country’s economic development, creating opportunities for its citizens to achieve greater economic freedom and prosperity. International trade allows countries to expand their markets for both goods and services that otherwise may not have been available domestically. As a result of international trade, the market contains greater competition, and therefore more competitive prices, which brings a cheaper product home to the consumer.
In 2019, goods traded was recorded to be more than US$19.5 trillion as per the United Nations Conference on and Development. It is estimated that more than 60% of this trade was seaborne. Marine Freight Containers moved around 266 million metric tons of goods around the world. Hence, every business in this world recognizes the importance of a secure supply chain for their growth.
Unfortunately, even after years of using ISO certified Bolt seals, the container transport supply chain still suffers from a significant amount of theft and tampering which is a loss for the companies; in terms of revenue, brand reputation and time of the workforce. Container theft usually occurs while the goods are in transit 8 out of 10 times. Activities such as goods being misplaced mislabelled or simply not reaching the intended destination due to theft or pilferage are the most common ways of container and cargo theft.
Based on a number of research papers and actions taken by private companies to secure their supply chain, we observe four key patterns that companies adopt to reduce theft and tampering:
- Thorough screening of the workforce while hiring
- Standardized identification and credentials for supply chain participants
- Maintenance of good documentation process for a paper trail whenever possible
- An advanced locking mechanism on cargo as well as a tamper-proof bolt or container seals
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All these identified solutions have been implemented across companies and supply chain’s but still have not proven to yield the desired results in reduction of container theft
An increasingly popular concept is the use of “Phygitial” seals to improve container security – these are “physical” security seals with elements of strength and durability combined with “digital” security elements of RFID and electronics. For example, to tackle cargo theft issues the Container Security Initiative (CSI) introduced the use of Electronic Container Seal (E-Seal) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. This product proved to be a success in reducing container theft and tampering and these observations led to governments in Taiwan and India deciding to upgrade the traditional supply chain to replace ISO Bolt or Mechanical Seals with the use of RFID E seals.
What Is an RFID E Seal?
The RFID Eseal is a passive RFID seal which combines the strength of regular bolt seals used on containers along with digitization using RFID and electronics, which makes the seal unique and impossible to replicate or replace once used. Further, the RFID Eseal can sync and store data on the cloud. The data storage ability has allowed for documentation such as export or shipping documents and truck related information to be paired with a unique seal and stored on the cloud securely. Now any party in the value chain can securely retrieve the data and see the status of their goods and get confirmation that the seal being used to move their cargo is secure and not tampered with.
Sepio Products Pvt Ltd. is empanelled by the Govt. of India to supply RFID Eseals. According to studies done by Sepio, post the implementation of RFID Eseals, several improvements have been observed in the movement of container cargo: –
- Increase in efficiency of the supply chain with more automation, fewer inspections and shorter transit time due to quick and easy scanning and data transfer
- Greater visibility in route information making it possible for companies to narrow down areas with high tampering and allowing companies to take better routing or vendor decisions
- Proof or evidence of tampering is now available with the date and time of the scan when it was found tampered,which makes insurance claims processing seamless and easier
Read: How Supply Chain Digitization Can Boost Customer & Brand Engagement?
To bring this into perspective, India implemented E-sealing of containers in October 2017 and saw an improvement in India’s ease of doing business ranking form 100 in 2017 to 77 in 2018 and more recently to 63. A major part of the improvement in the Ease of Doing business ranking was driven by the Ease of Exports significantly improving due to the positive feedback from Exporters, Customs Agents and the Officials alike. For more information on how the RFID Eseal can improve your ease of doing business, email Sepio at sales@sepioproducts.com.