Solutions for visualizing, understanding, and streamlining carbon emissions from various angles, such as business sites and products, corporate activities, and consumer behavior.
Efforts to conserve energy have been underway for several decades, but in recent years, the methods used have become more sophisticated, including AI and other technologies and billing methods based on usage. These solutions optimize energy usage.
Solutions related to batteries and hydrogen, such as electrification (EV) of mobility (means of transportation) such as cars and buses, which used to be fueled by gasoline, to reduce CO2 emissions, and to extract hydrogen for industrial use and to encourage its practical application.
Solutions related to batteries and hydrogen, such as electrification (EV) of mobility (means of transportation) such as cars and buses, which used to be fueled by gasoline, to reduce CO2 emissions, and to extract hydrogen for industrial use and to encourage its practical application.
Solutions that contribute to the fixation and absorption of CO2 in the atmosphere through forest protection and forest management, and offset the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that cannot be fully reduced through the purchase of carbon credits.
One solution is to reduce emissions in society as a whole by recycling metals, plastics, and other resources and products at various stages of economic activities.
FourKites / Real-Time Supply Chain Visibility: Mitsui Knowledge Industry's Unique Strategy for the Future
The logistics industry is facing the "2024 problem". Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd offers "FourKites," a platform that visualizes the status of shipment transportation, to help companies consider the loss caused by delayed arrivals and environmentally friendly transportation methods. We spoke with Mitsui Knowledge Industry about the main functions of FourKites and the extra services that only Mitsui Knowledge Industry can provide.
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FourKites | MKI (Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd.)
FourKites is a Real-Time Transportation Visibility Platform (RTTVP) that provides real-time end-to-end visibility of logistics transportation status. It aggregates data related to logistics status in the cloud, enabling a constant and up-to-date understanding of the logistics status.
Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd provides a wide range of services and solutions from a global perspective, leveraging its extensive business expertise and reliability accumulated over nearly 50 years, cutting-edge ICT technology, and strong partnerships with the Mitsui & Co. group of companies.
FourKites is a Real-Time Supply Chain Visibility provided by FourKites, Inc. Founded in the U.S. Mitsui & CO., Ltd. invested in 2022, and Mitsui Knowledge Industry started business in Japan in 2023.
We interviewed Mr. Yasuhiro Hirama of Sales Dept, DX Sales Div2, DX Sales Unit, Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd, who was exhibiting at the International Logistics Exhibition, about the functions and strengths of FourKites, which has a track record of over 1,500 companies globally.
Real-time visualization of the Entire Supply Chain from End-to-End
Hirama FourKites is the platform that enables "real-time visualization of the transportation status of logistics shipments in a single platfrom.
International Shipments are transported via a variety of logistics modals like air, ocean, rail, and truck transportation, and logistics providers. Conventionally, the status of shipments transportation had to be checked on each logistics provider's website, by phone, or by e-mail. This required an enormous amount of time and effort.
The main issues are ● Dozens of Shipments status inquiries come in, and have to respond to them each time.
● Taking time and effort to share information because of scattered information and data, and also different forms for each carriers.
● Demurrage (excess storage fees)/detention (late return fees) have occurred due to vessel delays, and not able to grasp the extent to which such problems have occurred in the past.
●When selecting a carriers, have somehow chosen the same route as before.
Many manufacturers, distributors, and forwarders (businesses that transport and import/export shipments on behalf of others) are facing these issues. These are costs that have room for improvement, but the biggest factor is due to analog operations.
Yasuhiro Hirama
Sales Dept, DX Sales Div2, DX Sales Unit, Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd
FourKites can aggregate all information on a single platform in the cloud by "linking data with each logistics service provider. This includes not only event information for each shipment, ETA/ATA (estimated time of arrival/actual time of arrival), ETD/ATD (estimated time of departure/actual time of departure), and loading/destination information provided by logistics companies, but also AIS information (vessel location information), truck GPS information, weather information, port congestion information, port congestion and so on.
On the UI, you can see multiple shipments at the same time, and when you click on the container you want to see, you can see from where to where the shipments go and where it is now. For example, in the case of ocean transport, shipping company's website will tell you that a shipment has already departed, but it will not tell you where it is. With FourKites, however, you can see the map of which tells you where the shipment is on the ocean and be aware of any changes in route, giving you reliable information.
FourKites Unique Arrival Prediction Time by AI
Hirama: In addition to the arrival time forecast by the shipping company, FourKites' own arrival time forecast can be calculated by AI based on machine learning of past route data, port congestion information, weather information, etc. By comparing these two forecasts, you can prepare for the risk of delays.
In the future, we hope to increase the reliability of FourKites' calculated arrival times by revealing the reason for the difference from the carrier's one.
Furthermore, FourKites provides real-time "shipments information," enabling confirmation of delayed shipments and shipments that are under the risk demurrage and detention. Since the number of past occurrences is also available, it is possible to devise not only immediate actions, but also future improvement measures, which can be expected to reduce costs.
The system can also analyze past carrier performance and route data, which can lead the cost reduction of the transportation with less effort when selecting future carriers and routes.
Of course FourKites is upgrated constantly, for recent example, "AI Chat Box" is released. This is the feature that allows users to enter the name of a global incident and make them know their shipments are under the incident or not automatically.
This has made it possible to use the chat box to batch extract shipment affected by accidents and incidents, such as a bridge collapse in Baltimore, a drought in the Panama Canal, or a rerouting due to the impact of a captured container ship in the Red Sea.
"CO2 emissions analysis" for Various Types of Transportation
Hirama: Regarding wth decarbonization, it is possible to analyze the distance and "CO2 emissions analysis" for each transportation. This allows you to analyze which modal is the most effective to reduce emissions. Currently, the distance is calculated by multiplying the distance by a predicted value or an actual value factor, but if customers demand is getting increase, we can consider to measure the distance based on weight, speed, loading capacity, etc in the future.
Leveraging FourKites Data to Support Inventory Optimization
FourKites has many other functions, and we asked Mitsui Knowledge Industry about how it can be used, including their impressions of the "International Logistics Trade Show".
--What were some of the challenges in introducing FourKites in Japan?
Fukuma: One of the biggest challenges were localization to Japanese and improving service quality. Japan is known for its demand for high quality, and FourKites has responded sincerely to these demands from customers and us.
Toru Fukuma
General Manager, DX Sales Div2, DX Sales Unit, Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd
--What differentiates Mitsui Knowledge Industry from its competitors and what are the strengths of Mitsui Knowledge Industry?
Fukuma: We are a FourKites distributor, but our main business is SI (design and development of business systems and mission-critical systems). Therefore, we can provide more advanced value by utilizing FourKites data, combining it with other products, and adding our knowledge of data analysis and AI. We believe this is an advantage that other competing vendors cannot offer.
--What exactly does it mean?
Fukuma: For example, we receive many requests for "inventory optimization" in logistics. When conducting such analysis, "procurement logistics" and "shipping logistics" data can be grasped using FourKites data. However, for "inventory optimization," a variety of data is required, including order data, inventory data, and production process data. The data in FourKites by itself cannot be used for this analysis.
Therefore, by combining, visualizing, and analyzing related data, "inventory optimization" becomes possible. We believe that we can add value by providing such a mechanism and, in the future, by realizing optimization of the entire supply chain, which can be linked to optimal "procurement" and "production" through "supply and demand forecasting" and "sales trend forecasting."
--What is the size of the business that should utilize FourKites?
Mizunuma: Our benchmark is more than 20,000 containers per year for ocean transportation. Many operators start with a minimum, as a trial. It is a common case to gradually increase the number of tracking from there.
Yuka Mizunuma
Sales Dept, DX Sales Div2, DX Sales Unit, Mitsui Knowledge Industry Co., Ltd
--What were your impressions of exhibiting at the International Logistics Exhibition?
Fukuma: I have the impression that more people are willing to listen to us for a long time and that there are many customers who are interested and concerned. Although this is a different exhibition, I felt that the level of understanding of "visualization of logistics" has deepened more than when we exhibited in 2023.
Mizunuma: We know that visualization of logistics is spreading, among customers who handle international shipments especially in Europe and the United States. Therefore, we have heard many voices saying that they would like to adopt this system in Japan as well.
--Do you feel a growing interest in the logistics industry regarding the reduction of CO2 emissions?
Fukuma: That's right. Customers themselves are becoming increasingly aware of the need to manage and monitor their own CO2 emissions. From this perspective, more and more people have been having interest in FourKites, and since the data related to Scope 3 is enormous, we often hear that they want to centrally manage just the logistics part of it. We hope to actively work on such things in the future.
