Brussels Airport, Voka and Nallian launch unique cargo community system

12/06/2014

With the support from the Flemish government, Brussels Airport, Voka and Nallian are launching a unique platform which will enable the various players at BRUcargo to securely exchange information. Based on Nallian’s cloud technology, the Cargo Community System (CCS) will enable the various players in the cargo zone to exchange information faster and more efficiently.

With its Strategisch Actieplan voor de Reconversie en Tewerkstelling (START – Strategic Action Plan for Reconversion and Employment) in the airport region, the Flemish government wants to recharge the airport region and provide it with new socio-economic incentives. In 2012, as part of this framework, Brussels Airport, the private players at the airport and Voka started BRUcargo Secured Gateway; a research project in cooperation with and led by the VIL (Vlaams Instituut voor de Logistiek). The objective was to develop BRUcargo into the most efficient and safest cargo airport in Europe.

Cargo Community System

The BRUcargo Secured Gateway project revealed that a CCS was imperative to arrive at the desired short and long term process optimisation. The CCS enables an easier, clearer, more reliable and faster (real time) exchange of information between the various players (industrial shippers, operators, truckers, handling agents, airlines, Brussels Airport Company, customs and the FAVV (Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain). The physical handling of the cargo will be improved and costs saved by this way of operating. The CSS enables continual process optimisation and provides the following benefits:

• flexible response to current and prospective market developments;

• readily taking advantage of new technological evolutions;

• remaining ahead of the competition from other cargo airports.

“Nowadays, an efficient cargo community system is indispensable for the development of any logistics cluster and certainly for BRUcargo”, states Steven Polmans, Head of Cargo at Brussels Airport. “We see an enormous increase in information in logistics; both in the available information and the need for information. The challenge that lies ahead is managing and steering this properly and we believe that, in Nallian, we have found the right partner to achieve this.”