A container does not care which software it passes through. It cares about the seams between them, and that is where most of its waiting time hides.
This week we are bringing our products together under one name, DMS Group. Before talking about us, here is the problem that pushed us to do it, and a check you can run on your own terminal tomorrow morning.
The problem lives in the handoffs
Follow one export box from the shipper to the vessel. A truck appointment is booked in one system. The gate reads the plate and the container number in another. The yard places the box according to the terminal operating system. The vessel plan is built in a planning tool. The port community system carries the customs and shipping status. And somewhere, a spreadsheet tries to estimate the CO2 of the whole thing.
Each of these tools can be excellent on its own. The trouble starts when one of them changes and the others learn it late, or never. A cut-off moves, but trucks keep arriving for the old one. A booking is amended, but the gate still expects the previous reference. A vessel slips by half a day, and the yard keeps stacking for a departure that is no longer happening.
None of this shows up as a bug. It shows up as a driver waiting, a reshuffle in the yard, a phone call, a retyped email.
What we are doing about it
Since 2020 we have built separate products for separate steps: truck appointments and gate flows, vessel and berth planning, port community services, CO2 measurement, and tools for forwarders and truckers. Today they serve 10,000 logistics customers in 28 countries.
Bringing them into one group is not a logo exercise. It is a working rule we set for ourselves:
- One event, told once. When a vessel time, a cut-off or a booking changes, every step that depends on it should receive the same information, from the same source.
- One identifier per thing. A container, a truck, a visit and a vessel call keep the same reference from the first appointment to the last report.
- Connect before replacing. Your terminal operating system, your customs links and your own reporting stay where they are. Our job is to connect to them, not to ask you to start over.
- Measure before claiming. CO2 and waiting time are reported from what actually happened at the gate and on the quay, not from a model built once and never checked.
These are rules, not promises. We will be judged on how well we keep them, and we expect operators to tell us when we do not.
An illustrative example
Take a vessel announced six hours late on a Tuesday morning (an illustrative case, not a measured one).
When the tools do not talk, the planner updates the vessel schedule, then someone emails the appointment team, then someone updates the cut-off, then truckers find out at the gate. Each step waits for a human to notice.
When the tools share the same event, the new arrival time moves the cut-off, the appointment windows shift, and the trucker sees the change on the booking before leaving the depot. The work is the same; the delay between the decision and the people it affects is what shrinks.
What you can do tomorrow: map your seams
You do not need any new software to start. Take one ordinary container and one ordinary day, and answer five questions with your team:
- How many systems does this container pass through? List them, including spreadsheets and shared mailboxes.
- At each handoff, who retypes what? Every manual copy is a place where a change can be lost.
- Does the container keep the same reference everywhere? Note each place where it gets a new name or number.
- When a vessel time changes, how long until the truck driver knows? Measure it once, with a real case.
- Who owns the CO2 figure, and from which data is it computed? If nobody can answer, that is your answer.
Write the answers on one page. Most teams find two or three seams that cost more than any single tool. Those are the ones worth fixing first, whoever your software providers are.
Where DMS Group fits
If you map your seams and want a second pair of eyes, we are happy to compare notes: no slides, just your one-page map and ours. And if your map shows that your current tools already talk to each other well, we would like to hear how you did it.
