“An electronic document can still create a manual workflow. The real value of digitalisation begins when the information inside it can move reliably between the systems, people and decisions that depend on it.”
BIMCO, one of the world’s largest international shipping associations and a leading developer of standard maritime contracts and clauses, has updated its open-source electronic bill of lading standard for bulk shipping.
Version 2.0 defines a common structure of 36 data fields, aligned with UN/CEFACT and ready for ISO 5909. Its purpose is to help different digital trade-documentation systems exchange bill of lading information more consistently.
On the surface, this is a technical update to one maritime document. In practice, it points to a much bigger change in the industry’s approach to digitalisation.
The important development is not simply that bills of lading can be created, controlled and transferred electronically. It is that the information inside them is being structured so that different authorised systems can understand and reuse it.
BIMCO’s update is therefore worth examining as more than an eBL development. It reflects the next challenge facing maritime technology: enabling trusted information to move between systems, organisations and decisions without being repeatedly entered, reformatted or reconciled.
Shipping companies now use specialist software across chartering, planned maintenance, procurement, finance, compliance and vessel performance, often supplied by different providers and introduced at different stages of the company’s digital development.
Each platform may perform its own function well. The difficulty appears when information needs to move from one part of the business to another.
A scanned document or PDF may be digital, but the information inside it can remain effectively trapped. Someone still has to read it, interpret it, and enter the relevant details into another system.
An electronic bill of lading improves how the document itself is managed. A common data standard goes further by helping other systems understand and reuse the information consistently.
That is the difference between digitising a document and connecting a workflow.
The bill of lading is not the end of the information it contains.
Cargo details, quantities, dates, ports and counterparties may also affect voyage results, freight invoicing, claims, demurrage, accounting and management reporting.
When the systems supporting these activities cannot exchange information reliably, the same details are entered repeatedly by different people for different purposes. An amendment may reach one department but not another, while two systems can hold different values for the same voyage or transaction.
Finance teams often experience the consequences during reconciliation, when figures cannot be trusted until someone has checked them against the original documents. Management reporting may then be delayed because operational and financial records do not agree.
These are not simply IT inconveniences. They affect efficiency, auditability, commercial exposure and the quality of the decisions that follow.
The growth of specialist maritime technology has brought considerable benefits. Owners and operators can choose applications that address particular operational challenges and provide deep expertise in areas such as voyage optimisation, emissions management and digital trade documentation.
However, every additional platform creates another boundary around the information it holds.
A company can therefore become more digital without becoming more connected. The fragmentation remains, but the information is now spread across portals, dashboards and software platforms rather than paper files and spreadsheets.
This changes how digital maturity should be assessed. The important question is no longer simply how many processes have been digitised, but how reliably information can move between them.
That requires systems to exchange more than isolated values. Information must retain its meaning, ownership, history and relationship to the wider operation.
APIs are essential to modern maritime software, but introducing an API does not automatically create a connected operation.
An API can transfer a field from one application to another. It cannot decide which system owns the information, whether it has been validated or what should happen when it changes.
Effective interoperability depends on clear answers to practical questions:
Without clear ownership and governance, integrations may simply move conflicting information faster.
The objective is not connectivity for its own sake. It is a consistent operational picture that people can trust, even when several different systems contribute to it.
Interoperability does not mean every shipping company must replace its technology with one enormous platform, nor does it require a single supplier to develop every capability.
Specialist applications will continue to play an important role, particularly where they provide deep expertise or connect an operator to a wider industry network.
The stronger model combines a connected maritime foundation with open, well-governed connections to the specialist systems an organisation chooses to use.
This allows information to remain connected to the work and decisions surrounding it. A maintenance requirement can inform inventory, procurement and cost. Commercial decisions can flow into voyage and financial results. Emissions information can contribute to compliance exposure and financial planning.
The value of an integration is not the amount of data it moves. It is the operational or commercial decision it improves.
BIMCO’s updated eBL standard will not solve maritime interoperability on its own.
Shipping companies still need compatible systems, clear data ownership and processes that protect the integrity of the information being exchanged. Counterparties must also adopt common standards and compatible ways of working.
The standard does, however, reflect an important change in ambition.
The industry is moving beyond asking whether a document can be made electronic. It is beginning to ask whether the information inside it can move safely, consistently and usefully through the wider shipping ecosystem.
The same question applies to invoices, bunker delivery notes, purchase orders, maintenance records, vessel certificates and emissions data.
Having a digital version is no longer the final objective.
At Shipnet, we believe operational, commercial and financial information should contribute to one connected picture of the business.
The Shipnet platform brings core maritime workflows together, while ShipConnect provides the integration capabilities needed to connect external systems, specialist platforms and other data sources.
The aim is not to collect more information for its own sake. It is to preserve the relationship between what happens on board a vessel, the work it creates ashore and the commercial or financial outcome that follows.
Shipping has already taken much of its work off paper. The next opportunity is to ensure that work is no longer trapped inside separate systems.
The bill of lading may be one of shipping’s oldest documents. Its future value could come from no longer behaving like a document at all.
Where does interoperability still break down in your organisation?
Is the biggest obstacle technology, data standards, ownership or getting counterparties to work differently?
Source: BIMCO updates its open-source eBL Standard to support the next stage of digital trade
Danny James
Marketing Manager