The idea of paperless documentation in container shipping is a least a decade away, according to the chief executive of digital documentation start-up Expedock.

“Given that you need to get governments of countries that we import from, basically all the Southeast Asian countries, involved, how quickly do you think we can get them on an electronic bill of lading,” said King Alandy Dy.

“We can expect the US or European countries to do it, but importing from China will still require documentation. It is a lofty goal, but I don’t think it is going to happen that quickly.”

Until that does happen, however, Expedock is seeking to reduce the burden of paper transactions by offering a cloud-based system that uses artificial intelligence to take the contents of scanned documents and emails and transfer them into forwarders’ tracking management systems.

“Freight forwarders spend a lot of money on data entry,” said Mr Dy. “Estimates show that it eats 12% of their revenue in data processing. You see forwarders sending documents by email, then having to manually enter that data into their TMS. Sometimes these systems do not have integration with customs websites, so they will need transcribing again.”

Using AI algorithms, Expedock extracts the relevant information from documents, ranging from shipping orders to bills of lading, and uses it to populate forms.

“We are extracting the information in plain text from the email. A lot of forwarders will outsource that data entry to Southeast Asia, but we allow them to do it in-house without the cost of data entry.”

By operating as a cloud-based system, it can integrate easily with whatever internal systems the forwarder operates, he added.

While the company has only been in operation for a few months, it has received unspecified venture capital funding and has support from a number of Silicon Valley luminaries.

Early customer reactions had been positive, Mr Dy said, as Expedock’s service requires no integration into existing systems and has no up-front costs, instead charging a $0.70 fee per document, allowing forwarders to digitalise their documentation without an expensive initial outlay.

Source:lloydsloadinglist

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