Tight supply chain supervision facilitates the continual flow of materials. When containers remain outside yards or ports longer than the allotted periods, they incur charges, which incentivize delay prevention. As executives assess how to reduce freight detention rates, many prioritize real-time visibility platforms. These solutions bring numerous benefits to those implementing them to meet shipping goals. 

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1. Enabling Better Reactivity

Without real-time visibility of every container, affected parties can typically only respond after receiving detention charges. Comprehensive coverage and timely status details can provide relevant information. Immediate updates about delays allow people to investigate the root causes and resolve them before fees accumulate. 

Besides tracking individual containers in real time, decision-makers can often retrieve previous statistics and find patterns within the data. That information can help them determine whether slowdowns occur because of specific employees, companies, seasons or other shared characteristics worth exploring. 

Northbound is a Germany-based global shipping company that plans to use a proprietary optimization algorithm to target detention and demurrage charges for its customers. The latter arises when containers remain at ports or terminals for periods longer than contractually specified. 

The product’s developers found that up to 90% of those fees occurred due to container processing mismanagement and a lack of oversight. They traced the root cause to poor process visibility, sometimes exacerbated by software gaps and parties managing data on spreadsheets rather than more advanced options. The Northbound team hopes its solution will simplify and automate formerly complex processes, giving users the information needed to reduce freight detention rates and improve other operational aspects. 

If decision-makers know about problems sooner, they will have more time to react and prevent charges. Complementary statistics could also reveal additional shortcomings that may cause unnecessary costs or delays. By prioritizing continuous improvement, leaders can progressively increase competitiveness and keep containers moving smoothly. 

2. Enhancing Container Tracking Capabilities

Internet of Things sensors are widely used for real-time visibility. They provide details about a container’s location and information, such as when perishable cargo is outside a temperature-controlled area for too long or breakable items are handled roughly. Some more advanced solutions also capture and analyze video data. 

Some users set up their systems to track individual containers to prevent loss. Authorized entities may receive real-time notifications from object-counting tools that reveal overall port traffic. Video evidence also provides additional details, giving affected individuals more leverage while engaging with other parties to verify what went wrong and whether a single issue started a larger chain of events. 

Once supply chain professionals at data-driven organizations start analyzing the specifics, they may find that detention fees often originate at specific locations. In that case, the best approach to reduce them could be to change routes or consider using the ports at different times of the year. However, the type of cargo, the sender’s budget, the desired arrival time frame and other factors may make some shipping methods infeasible. 

In those cases, supply chain professionals may choose travel options to avoid the container slowdowns some of the world’s most frequently used ports experience. For example, shipping cargo by air typically results in less congestion than using roads and sea routes. 

Eliminating freight detention charges is a lofty goal that may be impossible due to the high cargo volumes and usage statistics of modern ports. However, technological solutions providing real-time visibility let users analyze incurred fees by separating the factors they can and cannot control. Higher awareness allows people to manipulate the things within their influence, making preventable charges less likely. 

3. Simplifying Payment Processes

Despite their best efforts to reduce freight detention rates, professionals may still incur some fees. Although it varies by carrier, parties usually apply those charges by the day and per container. That means people may pay for extra time due to administrative slowdowns even if they are ready to provide the payments immediately. 

Representatives from shipping company Hapag-Lloyd aimed to prevent that issue by building a dedicated payment portal after collaborating with two other industry entities. Besides providing real-time visibility into container statuses, the system automatically generates invoices and enables seamless transactions. 

The tool’s developers believe it will reduce dwell times and modernize existing import processes. This innovation also includes user-friendly features for people wishing to monitor containers in bulk. For example, users can create watchlists and access the information for all entries in one place. Additionally, integrated dispute resolution capabilities help parties submit details and communicate with authorities about wrongfully applied charges. 

Because this tool also supports regulatory compliance, it is ideal for supply chain professionals who want to invest in purposeful technologies without risking their compliance status. The digitalization of forms, such as invoices, streamlines future retrieval, too. Physical paperwork can get lost or damaged. Even if people still maintain file cabinets of tangible documents, it is best to have digital backups.  

Once people see the detention fees incurred annually or within another designated period on the payment portals, they can determine whether efforts to reduce them have paid off or need further improvement. 

Digitalization also facilitates operations where administrative professionals in multiple locations submit freight detention fee payments. Because authorized users can log into cloud-based systems anywhere, that flexibility enables people to see and address bills as soon as they arrive, even outside a shipping company’s business hours. 

Real-Time Visibility Manages Freight Detention

Supply chain executives can only act on problems once they become aware of them. Dedicated efforts to identify the root causes of freight detention fees provide excellent visibility, often sending alerts to immediately inform people of delays, lost containers or other matters to investigate.

Decision-makers can anticipate many of the benefits mentioned here and others by thoroughly researching tools to reduce freight detention rates. Speaking to the employees who most frequently pay or manage those expenses can also reveal their most significant challenges and which steps take the most time to complete. The world’s supply chains require efficiency, and preventable costs increase during slowdowns. Advanced tracking and resolution technologies fill information gaps and encourage practical action.