Ship Transport Document Management

World leader in birch plywood production, supplying its products to more than 90 countries around the world.

Logistical interaction with freight carriers is one of the important processes in companies exporting their products. The main documents in this process are:

• Bill of lading (B/L) - is a document issued by a carrier (or their agent) to acknowledge receipt of cargo for shipment
• Draft - is a draft of a B/L, also issued by the carrier
• Instruction - is a document that is compiled by the shipper and contains all the information about the shipped goods

Discrepancies between the data in a Draft and the data in an Instruction are a serious problem that could lead to time and financial losses. In the process of coordinating these documents between the shipper and the carrier, it is very important to get full compliance with the information as soon as possible.

To accelerate the process and to increase its reliability it has been decided to develop a software robot based on Lexema-RPA platform. The robot development took only 2 months. As the result the software robot reduces the process to 50% of its original time. Robot also make the process reliable, not allowing the errors to appear, which is significant, since, every single error could cost 1-3% of the entire shipment.

1. First, the robot receives the Registry of Way Freight, checks the adequacy of the data to compile the Instruction. Then, if it is necessary, the robot sends a template by e-mail for the manager of the Sveza company to enter the missing information. This stage can be repeated until all the data that is necessary for compiling the Instruction is entered correctly.
   
   
2. Having the final version of the Registry of Way Freight, the robot compiles an Instruction and sends it to the e-mail address of the cargo carrier.
   
   
3. The carrier, in its turn, generates a Draft and gives it to the robot.
   
   
4. Next step is the reconciliation of the Draft and Instructions. The robot clearly and quickly identifies all inconsistencies and reports them to the carrier. This step is repeated as many times as necessary.
   
   
5. The robot confirms the correctness of the Draft and expects a Bill of Lading from the carrier within 5 days after loading onto the ship. If necessary, sends reminder emails to the carrier.
   
   
6. The robot sends the Bill of Lading received from the carrier to the Sveza manager responsible for the process by e-mail.