Brussels Airport Improves Digitization of Landside Processes
3rd May 2017
Nallian, a cloud-based data-sharing platform that operates communities is releasing its Slot Booking Application to the community at Brussels Airport. Nallian also recently launched NxtPort, an data utility platform which will collect and pool data from various stages in the supply chain of the Port of Antwerp.
When Steven Polmans, head of BRUcargo, initiated the BRUcloud initiative in 2015, his vision was to enable seamless collaboration between all cargo actors around the airport, by installing an open community platform that helps these companies to easily collaborate through a pool of shared data. Such shared data is used to synchronise cross-company processes, allowing clusters of independent companies to achieve efficiency levels that are historically reserved to fully integrated players only. The BRUcloud is not the first cargo community system in the world, but it is however claimed to be the first one that is truly open, in the sense that anyone can add applications on top of the pool of shared data. Such open character allows the community to tap into a vibrant ecosystem of innovative solution providers, instead of being dependent of one monolithic system and provider for everything.
Since going live in 2015, the system has already been extended with a dashboard visualising the quality of pharma shipments, an application which makes the booking of pooled equipment possible (e.g.: the airport’s own Airside Transport Pharma Dollies) and a statistical application which creates insight in the freight volumes handled at BRUcargo. The next killer app, to be implemented over the next months, is Nallian’s very own Slot Booking Application.
The Slot Booking Application will eliminate one of the most compelling problems, waiting times and idle times at the facilities of the ground handlers. By coordinating the match between supply and demand of time slots, the app streamlines the pick-up and delivery of freight at the ground handlers and leads to a better capacity utilization and elimination of peaks and idle-times. The Slot Booking App makes it possible for the booker (for example a forwarder) to request a single or recurrent time slot at a specific facility, via the same central web-application for all ground handlers. Concurrently, the supplier (ground handler) can make time slots for different cargo types available via the web-application or a system-to-system link with its intern slot management system.