by admin on June 13, 2011
Sea freight has a long history – almost as long as trade itself. Since the earliest days of boats, even prior to the use of sail, boats were used to move goods between communities where land access was difficult or impossible.
In the modern age, sea freight plays a major role in keeping the global economy going. Sea freight is responsible for moving raw materials, such as coal or iron ore, from mining countries like Australia to major industrial manufacturing countries like China. Sea freight is then used to move finished goods from those manufacturing countries to customers around the world.
The movement of bulk solid cargoes – coal, mining ores – is usually performed in bulk carriers. These ships have large, open holds which can be filled with cargo quickly and efficiently. For fluid cargoes such as oil, a different type of bulk carriers – the ‘tanker’ – is used. Tankers are some of the largest sea freight vessels plying the oceans.
Since the 1960s, most manufactured goods moved by sea freight have travelled in container vessels. Goods are loaded into standard shipping containers at the point of departure – often at the factory itself – then transferred by road or rail to the dock. Specialised cranes then stack the containers neatly into the hold and above the decks of the container ship. Another form of sea freight vessel which is widely used for the movement of cars and other vehicles is the ‘roll on roll off’ ship. These ships are designed specifically so that vehicles can be driven directly on board without external handling.
The sea freight industry operates under the guidance of a large civilian ‘navy’ of merchant seamen, people who spend their lives travelling the world.
Freight forwarding is a service which looks after all aspects of the movement of freight between its departure point and its destination. Some of the activities involved in freight forwarding include organisation of carriage (either by a shipping company or by a courier company), organisation of pick up and compilation of paperwork.
Freight forwarding is a specialised activity which makes import and export easier. People working with freight forwarding companies are experts in negotiating the sea of documentation which can be associated with a shipment. This document can include the senders commercial invoice, various declarations (including lists of what is being shipped), the bill of lading (which records acceptance of a shipment on board a vessel or aircraft) and customs documentation. In Australia, many freight forwarding organisations also act as customs clearance agents (customs brokers) and are able to handle all aspects of the customs process for import and export on behalf of their clients.
Good freight forwarding companies take over all these activities for their clients, allowing their clients to get on with their own business. Freight forwarding personnel are highly organised people who have an eye for detail: leaving out a single document, or even a field on a form, can lead to hold ups in delivery. Effective freight forwarding personnel are skilled at anticipating problems and keeping their clients in touch with what is going on.
Where freight forwarding has traditionally been laden with paper, modern freight forwarding is performed largely electronically. However, there are still as many documents, albeit electronic documents, that need handling. Nevertheless, the skills needed remain the same: thoroughness, detail-orientation and a desire to, literally, dot the i’s and cross the t’s.
Shipping companies encompass all those organisations involved with moving freight between destinations in the same country or different countries. The goods moved by shipping companies vary enormously: anything from a single parcel to a full load of coal.
Shipping companies move freight by land, sea and air. Some companies specialise in only one of these, while major global carriers like DHL and FedEx use all three means of transport. Often shipping companies which coordinate door-to-door shipments will need to use more than one mode of transport to complete delivery.
Shipping companies typically need to balance two major factors when choosing modes of transport. If speed is the priority – if a parcel needs to get to its destination quickly – then air freight is often the mode of choice. However, air freight is expensive, so where cost minimisation is the priority the shipping will be done by road or sea.
Shipping containers revolutionised sea-based shipping in the 1960s. Because all containers are built to standard sizes, they can readily be stacked on board ships maximising the amount they can carry.
More recently, technology has further revolutionised the modern shipping company. These companies are now fascinating examples of modern technology at work. The use of bar codes, radio frequency (RF) tracking and GPS means that most shipping companies know where each and every van, truck, aircraft or ship is at any time. In many cases they also know where every container is at any time – to the precise point that the container sits on the dock.
While international trade has long meant that shipping companies have an important place in the economy, in the modern global economy they are now more important than ever.
What is a freight forwarder? A freight forwarder plays an essential role for any company involved in import/export or international freight movements. Freight forwarders look after all the paperwork (or electronic paperwork, as it is today) involved with moving goods around the world. And there is a lot of paperwork.
A freight forwarder liaises with shipping companies to organise passage (place on a ship or aircraft, for instance) for a shipment. They might then organise pickup of the shipment from their client’s premises for delivery to the shipping company. Next, the freight forwarder will organise the bill-of-lading – the document required to place the shipment onboard a vessel – and any export documentation required. At the receiving end, the freight forwarder will again organise import/customs paperwork and, finally, delivery of goods to the final destination. All along the way the freight forwarder is keeping in touch with both shipping companies and clients to keep everyone abreast of what is going on.
Shipments can vary from a few boxes to a pallet load to a container load to an entire tanker full of oil, so the job of the freight forwarder can vary enormously in this regard. However, to the freight forwarder themselves, each shipment is more-or-less the same as any other: they just need to follow the correct process and stay in touch with what is going on.
Freight forwarders are experts at what they do and therefore remove a lot of complexity from the workload of those who want shipments made.
Freight forwarders operate all over the world playing a crucial role in the movement of goods from one country to another. Freight forwarders have existed for a very long time, since the earliest days of trade, and act as agents for their clients looking after every aspect of shipping.
Shipping can be quite a complex task with a lot of documentation required both on export and import. Freight forwarders understand the particular documentation requirements for particular types of freight. They know what is needed, in particular, in order to bring goods into a country. This, in the area of customs for instance, is where the complexity of shipping can become very high.
Freight forwarders tend to liaise with counterparts, either in their own firm or in a related firm, in other countries as they organise movement of goods. They stay in touch, also, with shipping companies so that they can keep their clients informed about their status of their shipments.
Freight forwarders need to understand the different requirements of different shipments. They need, for instance, to be able to handle a tanker full of crude oil as well as a single pallet of manufactured goods – or even a single parcel. However, many freight forwarders do specialise in particular industries.
Sometimes freight forwarders also act as carriers themselves, and therefore take on responsibility for moving shipments around as well as dealing with the associated paperwork of those shipments. In the end, the freight forwarders job is to make life as easy as possible for their clients, who do not want to concern themselves with the details of stock movement and rather want to get on with doing their own job.
International freight is the movement of goods between countries. These goods can be anything from single parcels to entire ship-loads of oil, coal or other bulk goods.
International freight is a huge component of the global economy as goods are exported and imported to and from every country in the world. The history of international freight really goes back to the earliest days of sailboats, and even before that to the vikings in Europe and various other trading between Asian countries.
There is a wide range of players in the international freight industry, from shipowners and airlines to armies of merchant (i.e. civil) mariners to freight forwarders and land transport companies. The whole international freight market is managed using large amounts of paperwork (mostly electronic these days) which ensure that goods are carefully tracked and that international and local laws are adhered to.
These days technology plays a large role in international freight, with GPS, radio frequency and barcodes all used to quickly and, often, automatically track the movement of goods. Shipping containers can be tracked as they move all over the world using GPS, for instance.
When people talk about the ‘global economy’ they are really talking about international freight, because without such freight there would not be a global economy. The ability to buy goods online from overseas vendors is entirely facilitated by the existence of international freight companies. Similarly, and increasingly, the ability of countries like China to quickly grow their economies is enabled by the international freight industry’s ability to move large quantities of material like coal and iron ore across the seas.
International shipping has been transformed in the last twenty or thirty years by the advent of, first, inexpensive computing power and other technologies and, second, the internet.
Where once upon a time international shipping was dominated by physical paperwork, from consignment notes to bills-of-lading to customs documents and delivery notes, all this is now managed on computer databases and on the internet.
With the advent of the internet, international shipping continues to get larger and larger as an industry. The ability for people to shop online, compare prices and buy goods from the cheapest supplier, wherever that supplier is, is revolutionising shopping and also transforming the world of international shipping.
A lot more international shipping now involves the movement of small parcels. Where once a box, pallet or even container load of a single item would be moved from its place of manufacture to a local store, now the goods can travel one-by-one, sometimes directly from the factory at one end, and directly to the door of the customer at the other end.
International shipping is also facilitating the growth of developing economies as it allows raw materials to be moved across the globe for conversion into, for instance, steel. That steel can then be further shipped on to manufacturers for shaping and the assembly of an enormous range of finished goods.
The speed of modern international shipping contributes to all of this – speed which in large part is enabled by the technology within the industry.
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