The creation of SCM (supply chain management) class IT systems in inland shipping can take place within the following models:
1. Shipowner model: development of proprietary systems by large shipping companies.
2. Skipper model: development of proprietary systems by associations of family-owned shipping companies.
3. External model: development of external systems (logistics and port operators, industrial and commercial enterprises) containing an inland shipping service module.
Large shipping companies and associations of family-owned shipping firms build their own IT systems to manage the enterprise and transport processes using electronic data interchange between all organizational units, including river vessel crews, as well as the external environment. The use of EDI by shipowners and associations has been and will continue to be driven primarily by the requirements of the environment (customers, port operators, waterway administration). If expenditures were to be incurred on creating a proprietary IT system solely to provide conditions for electronic data interchange with the environment, the costs of using such a system would significantly outweigh the benefits. These benefits would be limited only to the effect of simplifying data exchange processes, and in specific cases, the effects would include avoiding the loss of orders from customers.
In conditions of lack of access to sufficiently large capital necessary for creating proprietary IT systems in inland shipping, IT systems of external entities can be used. At the first stage, the expansion may be limited to installing peripheral devices of the system and software for data entry and electronic transmission to the server supporting the system in shipping companies and at skippers’ locations. At the next stage, it is possible to create modules in the external IT system for: transport process management, fleet management, commercial process management in inland shipping, profit and loss accounts for transport service providers, and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) management.
Only the creation of a proprietary SCM-class IT system or providing access to an external system of this class opens up the possibility of obtaining various economic effects in shipping and skipper enterprises in inland shipping.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 4/2004.