The Suez Canal puzzle – pulling the pieces together

Photo: Suez Canal Authority

You might have read about what digitisation can do to improve the shipping industry – but a while load of that stuff is written in terms that can be hard to understand, especially when you try to apply it to the real world, this analysis by a group of leading industry thinkers in The Maritime Executive on the recent Suez Canal blockage will go along way for readers to understand how “reengineering practices and securing shared data are prerequisites to optimize maritime flows”. It’s a long read, but well worth it: “By using the real throughput time for the canal combined with data on queue replenishment this would also mean that we would be able to approximately predict which ship would be passing through the canal at what time. This is of substantial value for the actors that would like to predict when the goods will appear at the port and point of destination and consequently being able to plan for the use of buffers and possibly accelerated handling at the port and hinterland transportation or even emergency supply through, for example airfreight transport.