Electronic work orders

Project SDISET – Exchange of electronic service contracts (“Work dispositions”) and Cargo storage records in the Port of Koper

The SDISET project began in 1992 with the aim to introduce electronic service contracts in the Port of Koper and to guarantee contracting entities feedback information about the performed services and the users of their services, and to establish a basis for further development of the electronic data interchange between the Port of Koper and its business partners.

At that time the project was revolutionary, as it introduced for all indirect users of transhipment and storage services of the Port of Koper, i.e. forwarding companies and shipping agencies, electronic work ordering at the Port (“Work disposition” document) and electronic certification of the transfer of ownership between forwarding companies and shipping agencies (“Without reservation” document), automated opening and deleverage of the cargo storage record at the Port, and return electronic notifications of contracting authorities about the implemented services (“Entry, removal from warehouses” document).

By studying systems of electronic data interchange (EDI) of transport documents between participants in a transport chain (shipping agencies, port, forwarding companies, road transport operators, railway), and also by studying examples and experiences of some solutions in the Ports of Hamburg, Venice and Genoa the following results were obtained:

• legal basis were established;
• a public Book of standards for the exchange, structure of messages and individual segments was established in accordance with the principles of the EDIFACT standards;
• a general application for personal computers, intended for all forwarding companies and shipping agencies, was developed as an accessory for generating electronic dispositions and for electronic data interchange with the Port. Most of the smaller forwarding companies were at that time just becoming acquainted with personal computers and electronic data interchange;
• a central communication node for legal recording of data handover between participants (timestamp) was established;
• a group of applications for the support of accepting and planning ordered work and the connection with the then cargo storage record for the purpose of customs control of cargo in the Port of Koper was developed in the central computer of the Port of Koper;
• a system for central uniform maintenance of code systems and tables was established for all users with service messages and electronic data interchange.

With electronic data interchange the content of the received messages in the Port of Koper is processed in real time at the central computer system.  After a formal and logic control (depending on the type of the service contract), control of the cargo quantity in the Port and control of necessary accompanying customs authorizations, the sender receives the first answer. The results of the formal and logic control are immediately forwarded in the form of feedback information to the contracting authorities and their mailboxes in the communication node.

The accepted electronic dispositions in the Port automatically open the electronic record of goods in the duty-free zone, where all administrative movements of goods in the Port (transfers of ownership, customs procedures, changes of direction, etc.) and physical movements of goods (entry, removal from warehouses) are then recorded.

The SDISET system became operative in the Port of Koper and for all users of its services in September 1992. The shipping agency FERSPED Koper then became the first official electronic service contract for the entry of cargo in the Port on the route truck-warehouse (code DVH K-S).

In 2007 the SDISET system was reprogrammed and renamed to the present TINO system due to the termination of the IBM central computer system and transition to the new technological platform in the Port of Koper.