Long Beach launches data tool

The Port of Long Beach is partnering with UNCOMN, a U.S. technology consulting firm, to launch the “Supply Chain Information Highway,” a free-to-stakeholders cargo visibility service software. 

“The software will help shippers make better operational decisions by providing the data to integrate into their own systems and track their cargo through the complete supply chain,” the port said. A soft launch is planned in February 2022.

“This tool will put actionable data into the hands of supply chain participants, to enable them to make better plans and decisions,” said Port of Long Beach Executive Director Mario Cordero. “It will be free, and the data collected will work with existing systems.”

“In an era of e-commerce and overnight delivery, it’s more important than ever to have full visibility and transparency for shipments,” said Long Beach Harbor Commission President Steven Neal. “Our goal in working with UNCOMN is to make a tool that will enable our partners to schedule and plan prior to cargo arrival and reduce delays during each handoff between modes of transportation.”

The Port of Los Angeles has been pushing Long Beach to join the “Port Optimizer” portal it developed with Wabtec, but this announcement signals Long Beach is going in another direction and developing its own systems for sharing data across the supply chain.

Long Beach held meetings with stakeholders to determine what data services they required. “The overwhelming response was that due to the varied nature of business issues across terminals, the best possible solution was to offer access to a platform that securely collected, curated and published data across all modes of transportation, and allowed users to analyze the data using their own systems.

“St. Louis-based UNCOMN was selected after a competitive request for proposals. The company has worked for more than 10 years supporting the Department of Defence’s U.S. Transportation Command, U.S. Army Surface Deployment and Distribution Command, and U.S. Air Force Air Mobility Command in areas such as data analytics, cloud application development and cloud data environment development,” the port concluded.