Movement of people and goods by water has been a common practice dating from the 15th century, or the Age of Exploration – leading to the rise of global trade and eventually paving the way for the beginning of globalization. Today, ocean freight is essential to the world economy as more than 90% of the world’s trade is carried by ocean or sea. Ocean freight can take longer, but is more cost-effective, and is normally used when shipping in high volumes or transporting large and heavy items. The ability of transportation management systems to support ocean and international shipments is crucial especially for companies who engage in import and export activities.  

We’re pleased to announce that with release of Update 20B for Oracle Transportation Management Cloud(OTM) and Oracle Global Trade Management Cloud (GTM), we’re introducing new enhancements in ocean and international shipments, improved decision support with 3D load configuration, and New Item Qualification Manager in GTM to further enhance the trade agreement qualification process. With the current volatility in trade data, we’ve also improved managing regulatory content from providers.

Our product experts will be hosting a Customer Connect Event on Tuesday, April 21st, to discuss these new features in detail. Watch the video and continue reading for a quick summary of the update. 

OTM enhancements for ocean and international shipments

Ocean transportation orders are often in large quantities requiring multiple equipment (or multiple containers), which companies want to manage within a single shipment, or a single multi-equipment shipment. OTM can now determine the ideal mix of equipment for this multi-equipment shipment through container optimization.

With limited space on a vessel, users can now make pre-order booking requests, which provides the ability to secure capacity for a shipment before the orders appear in OTM. Once capacity is booked and confirmation is received from the service provider, users are able to subsequently plan orders into shipments, and start assigning shipments to the pre-booked capacity.

Better decision support with 3D load configuration in OTM

Users can now manually adjust the 3D-optimized solution to incorporate last minute changes and local knowledge before finalizing the shipment.

Highlight critical trade information and better user experience in GTM

The New Item Qualification Manager improves trade agreement qualification monitoring and the additional flex fields in transactions, declarations, items parties, and registrations offer a more user-friendly experience. With trade regulations changing constantly, GTM now allows you to monitor updates on trade regulatory content coming from providers, and retrieve additional details with SmartLinks.

For more information, check out our New Feature Summary and join us at our OTM-GTM 20B Customer Connect Event on April 21st at 9am PT / 12pm ET.