Need for more digital collaboration in tank cleaning and reduce paper document exchanges
On September 17, VNCI organized a workshop around Tank cleaning in Breda. From the workshop, it became clear that the current practice of exchanging millions of logistics paper documents (CMR,SDS,ECD,…) in tank cleaning operations is no longer “state-of-art”. There are safety risks for cleaning operators especially in relation to previous cargo composition and product safety data or sustainability risks towards the environment when handling tank leftovers. Instead, there is an immediate need to further simplify and automate the tank cleaning administrative processes through digital collaboration and data sharing. For ECTA members already familiar with the electronic eECD process via ECLIC, this message is not new and the digital eECD path is ready to grow across Europe. However, the adoption towards digital data sharing in logistics remains overall very slow, something which is not only visible in tank cleaning operations but across the entire logistics chain as the use of logistics paper is so embedded in peoples minds.
Further zooming in on the problems with paper, an independent SQAS questionnaire analysis performed in the Netherlands, revealed that 3,5 out of 10 tank cleaning companies often miss the latest safety data sheet information to perform a cleaning or there are doubts about the accuracy of previous cargo info leading to “special cleaning programs, extra risks and costs”. This number was confirmed by ATCN and is the focus area for improvement.
The slow adoption towards digital document exchanges in tank cleaning is no longer related to the technology or the lack of an industry eECD standard but rather to the hesitation of cleaners, carriers and shippers towards digitalization. Besides, shippers have no direct contractual relationship with the cleaning stations which is something that might lead to these complex logistics chain collaboration problems and projects being lower on their priority lists.
At the last ECTA RC workshop on 9th October, a roundtable was organized around the slow adoption of digital collaboration in chemical logistics and the following recommendations were made to drive digital change
- The big chemical companies need to lead by example and make digital documents or data flows mandatory. Carriers and cleaners will follow.
- Digital data standards and standardized IT interfaces are a pre-requisite to avoid the “point-to-point’ digital connections and extra IT complexity
- Learn by doing from digital collaboration pilots with big shippers and scale
There is consensus that the use of paper in chemical logistics is not the future. Instead, digital collaboration should be seen as a primary goal and an enabler of logistics excellence, cost reduction, and industry competitiveness.