On July 14, 2016, ZIM Integrated Shipping Services announced it will be using INTTRA’s eVGM services, which means that ZIM and its customers will now comply with the IMO’s Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) VGN amendment.
The amendment in question states that all containers must have a verified gross mass (VGM) before being loaded onto a ship, which came into effect on July 1, 2016.
Dudi Avni Vice President of Customer Service at ZIM,said: “The eVGM solution now made available to our customers is part of our ongoing efforts to provide first-rate customer service, as part of our strategy and vision.”
INNTRA’s eVGM service allows for the digital submission, receipt processing and auditing of VGMs for containers for both shippers and carriers.
ZIM customers will be able to submit VGM information through a variety of channels, including EDI, XML, the web, mobile devices and e-mail by using INTTRA’s e-commerce solutions.
Technical Paper: Container Weighing Explained
Inna Kuznetsova, President and COO at INTTRA, said: “We are pleased to extend our growing e-commerce partnership with ZIM. Joining the INTTRA eVGM network will further ZIM's impressive efforts to leverage IT in order to provide great customer service.”
China has recently struggled to comply with the new container weighing rule, with 50% of its VGM submissions submitted online being incomplete.
Fact File: Est. 1945, ZIM has a fleet of 80 vessels calling at over 180 ports across the world; it also has more than 170 offices in over 100 countries. INNTRA is an electronic shipping market place works with over 50 leading Carriers and NVOCCs and more than 110,000 freight forwarders and shippers. Over 650,000 container orders are initiated on the INNTRA platform and more than 100 software alliance partners are used to streamline and standardize the shipping process.