US import business doubles in a year

EDI system streamlines document flow A FOUR year old investment has started to pay dividends for Concordia International Forwarding, according to MD Richard Rattray. This followed the decision to develop the company’s business in moving less than container load (LCL) cargoes from US to SA. “We realised that we had to do something different,” said Rattray. This led Concordia to invest in its own container depot in Isando and simultaneously start to truck its LCL containers from Cape Town to Johannesburg. “We went through the learning curve with Safmarine, our shipping line of choice, and after four years of experience believe we have this down to a fine art,” Rattray added. “The investment has paid huge dividends. Using our specialisation in air and sea freight from the USA, we have seen a massive increase in business – with both LCL and full container load (FCL) freight business doubling from 2005 to 2006.” The procedure is a full control of the entire supply chain – with Concordia’s US parent company handling the landside movement in that country via its Chicago and Newark facilities, and the local company taking control at the port of Cape Town, and trucking the containers to the Isando depot. Said Rattray: “Concordia can collect cargo anywhere in the US and position it at our origin offices, truck the freight to the two container loading depots, then ship the containers to SA every week on the American Express Service. “Our transit time to Cape Town from Los Angeles is 37-days, Chicago 30-days and Newark 23. Add three days for Johannesburg and four for Durban and Port Elizabeth.” Concordia has also developed an electronic data interchange (EDI) system to streamline its document flow. “This allows us to submit our LCL and FCL manifests to SA Revenue Service (Sars) electronically, as well as receive electronic releases once the customs clearance has been submitted by the clearing agent,” said Rattray.