ITN Announces Arrival of OSC Intermodal Shipping Containers

The Innovative Trade Network (ITN), a BV Solutions Group (BVSG)-led team of specialists from 10 companies announced the arrival of the first three Operation Safe Commerce (OSC) intermodal shipping containers at warehouse facilities in Seattle, Wash. "The first three shipping containers left Germany on March 3, 2004, and have traveled a total of 11,500 miles by truck, ocean carrier and rail in their journey to the United States," said Lowell Thurman, BVSG senior project manager and vice president. "These three shipping containers are the first of more than 100 containers that will be tracked from Europe and Asia by the ITN team." The goal of the OSC program is to demonstrate the use of new and updated technologies, policies and procedures to allow for the development of more accurate risk profiles for intermodal shipping containers. The containers will be fitted with various sealing, tracking and information gathering technologies, and exposed to actual shipping conditions on two supply chains. Additionally, they will be monitored for logistics and security anomalies. The shipping containers that were tracked contained food products or automobile parts. The ITN team performed detailed vulnerability assessments of existing supply chains and deployed technologies to mitigate potential shortfalls in security. The technologies deployed included electronic sealing devices, centralized data consolidation software, off-gas analyses, independent container inspection, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, automated external container integrity checks, global positioning system (GPS) tracking, credentialing of personnel, anti-counterfeit sealing devices, automated hazardous material documentation and information profiling.