November 2000

Hints of increasing integration between emerging online freight exchange services and existing logistics and transport management systems emerged during a "talk-in" hosted in November by Isotrak, the fleet management and vehicle tracking systems specialist.

Craig Sears-Black, Isotrak's commercial director, spoke of plans by his organisation (as yet still to be defined) to provide direct links with freight exchanges ­ adding a management and vehicle tracking capability to the mix. "Integration of processes is as important as getting goods moved efficiently," he said. He believed one of the functions of the freight exchanges should be "to provide visibility of goods movements." To achieve this, he felt it was necessary to create "a dynamic environment" by using real-time communications links. "We are not in a static world." Arguably a greater priority for the exchange operators themselves is creating what is termed liquidity of market ­ or what Andrew Arbour, technical director of X4i, called "continuous trading". Richard Hunt, chief executive of eLogistics, agreed with that analysis, and felt that the market was currently over-subscribed. "There are probably too many of us," he admitted, citing a statistic indicating that there could be as many as 312 would-be freight exchange contenders. Hunt also agreed that systems integration would a key to success in this market. His company has in fact lately launched something called eLogistics Integrator, which is intended to integrate its service with users' existing systems. Integrator aims to provide links with other business-to-business trade platforms, transport management and routing systems, warehouse management systems and enterprise resource planning systems: a comprehensive list, which eLogistics claims makes it the most advanced of its kind in Europe. Note that there is no connection between eLogistics and e.logistics Magazine, an independent publication.