"Data is important, as we want to know how the product arrives"

The time between a container of bananas being closed in Ecuador and the European importer only discovering upon arrival how the bananas made it through the journey are in the past. Data plays an important role in this. Fyffes has been using this data stream on their own conventional ships for a while, and now that the company has moved their transport into the hands of Maersk Line, they receive their data through the Danish shipping company.

Last week Maersk presented a platform on which the data of the containers is available for customers. Jeronimo Poggio, shipping director at Fyffes, speaks of the testing phase in which they worked with the Remote Container Management (RCM). "We have now been receiving the information on this basis for a year," says Jeronimo. "The background to it is that we had that information on what the temperatures were like during transport with our own ships."

This data is important because we want to know how the product is before it arrives here," he continues. "This removes any surprises when we open the container." With this knowledge Fyffes knows that the bananas aren't going to arrive ripe. "So that we know that what we're supplying our customers is good." For Maersk it's an advantage that a defect in equipment is discovered more quickly. If the temperature changes, an alarm is sent to the customer and shipping line.

Quick intervention
"We receive all data live," says Jeronimo. All containers shipped for Fyffes supply information on temperature, for instance, daily. This produces a large amount of data, but this isn't new to the company. "We have a lot of data every day, but we used have the same with our ships. It concerned holds and there used to be 180 reefer containers on the conventional ships that we used to have."

During the testing phase the data wasn't yet available through the dashboard as Maersk presented it. "They started by looking at whether the data collection worked," explains Jeronimo. "The main thing for us is: is the shipment that is arriving good? That's what we use the data for." Since the importer has been receiving this data, it has been very useful. A broken container is discovered on time and can be repaired, or Fyffes knows that part of the shipment will be lost due to broken cooling. The importer also knows how long the reefer was off before the container was repaired. "Then you know to sell that batch first. A broken container doesn't mean that the load has been lost, but by selling the product quickly you can prevent it from becoming a claim."

More information:
Fyffes
Jeronimo Poggio
Marconistraat 19
Rotterdam, 3029 AE
Netherlands
Tel: +31 10 244 5300
Fax: +31 10 244 5302
bananasnl@fyffes.com
www.fyffes.com