The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulations (PPWR) currently being prepared by the EU are clearly aimed at consumer packaging, in terms of both reducing waste and reducing the amount of plastic content, but the legislation will also have a significant impact on automotive packaging and with deadlines fast approaching, companies in the automotive supply chain need to act now!
The urgency for more sustainable and environmentally conscious automotive logistics practices has led ECG and VDA to work together to develop an Emissions Calculation and Reporting Guideline for automotive supply chains.
As we approach the end of another amazing year, with a jam-packed 2024 programme ahead of us, it is fitting to reflect on 2023 and wrap-up in style. What better way to do this than recognising all those who have made our excellent results possible.
Odette and ECG have recently published Release 1.2 of their digital message standards for Finished Vehicle Logistics (FVL). The new release includes amendments and updates which take account of issues discovered during the practical implementation of the original messages by several European OEMs, including BMW, Volvo Cars and Volkswagen Group Logistics.
APIs, especially REST APIs, are being increasingly used to provide and access information in automotive supply and distribution processes. They are comparatively easy to install and deploy, allow an agile process management, and can be used with many different devices from mobile phones up to server systems.
However, APIs also bring new threats to system integrity and data security and may cause serious disruptions to supply chain processes if developed and deployed without the appropriate security features.
The automotive industry was in the vanguard of the einvoicing movement and has been exchanging invoices and other financial documents using structured digital messages for more than 40 years. But are our long-established procedures and standards now under threat from governments and tax administrations across the world looking to intervene in the einvoicing process in an attempt to reduce tax fraud and close the VAT gap?
The transportation of production parts may be compromised for many reasons, especially in long distance supply chains. The customer needs to know as quickly as possible what impact a delay in the transport chain could have on the current production plan but often the link between the contents of a shipment and the means of transport carrying that shipment is missing, especially in a 4 corner model where actors are not in an established relationship or use web portals to carry out activities such as, ad-hoc ordering and confirmation of transport capacity.
An increasing number of OEMs and Tier1 suppliers are requiring their suppliers to implement the GTL however not all suppliers have the appropriate back-end systems to produce these labels to the correct specification consistently.
The automotive industry is increasingly moving to smaller pack quantities, for both deliveries and trackside storage, which has led to more and more tray and blister packaging being used. These very small packaging sizes pose particular challenges for labelling even with the small load container labels already specified by Odette. To meet these challenges, the Odette Technology Group has designed two even smaller labels which can carry the main data items of the Global Transport Label.
The OFTP2 Expert Group constantly reviews the OFTP2
protocol to ensure that it remain at the leading edge of file transfer
technology. The latest enhancement -“Partner Details Exchange using XML“ -
published in version 3 of the OFTP2 Implementation Guideline will bring about significant gains in time and
efficiency.
