March 25, East China Normal University came good news, a few days ago, the International Organization for Standardization Central Secretariat in Geneva officially released the East China Normal University Professor Bao Qifan led the development of the container international standard "ISO/TS 7352: 2023 container NFC / two-dimensional code box seal", which is China in the field of logistics and transport international standards in the development of a major breakthrough to digitally boost the container Logistics standardization upgrade.
The Department of Science and Technology of the Ministry of Transport expressed congratulations to East China Normal University, Bao Qifan team took 8 years to complete the development of container NFC / two-dimensional code box seal technology and industrial applications, and formed an international standard, to enhance the international container transport intelligence level, reduce logistics costs to make a positive contribution.
Installing "electronic locks" for containers
Container is the global logistics transport "cell", in order to ensure transport safety and clear responsibility identified, each container need to have a box seal, as transport handover certificate, if the box seal is opened or broken, can be used as a basis to determine which link in the logistics transport security or management problems.
The invention of Bao Qifan's team is to turn this seal from mechanical to digital. Mechanical box seal in two problems: one is easy to be illegally opened or stolen, resulting in the logistics process, smuggling, smuggling, theft of goods and other problems; Second, because there is no automatic identification function, each installation of the box seal must be manually entered into the relevant information, not only low efficiency, but also prone to errors.
In order to realise the "real-time, visualisation, traceability and big data integration" of container seals, Bao Qifan's team invented a series of products such as sky-ground integrated container monitoring terminals based on BeiDou/low-orbital satellites and container NFC/2-dimensional code seals, which won the first prize of Shanghai Science and Technology Progress and China Navigation The relevant achievements won the First Prize of Shanghai Science and Technology Progress and the First Prize of China Maritime Science and Technology Progress.
These inventions have solved the painful problems of the industry. Bao Qifan said, "container NFC / two-dimensional code box seal is the container 'electronic lock', through it real-time monitoring of the container transport trajectory and security dynamics, so as to control the logistics trends, to achieve full monitoring."
Become an international standard is not easy
The container itself is a major invention, it is a huge contribution to global logistics is "standardisation", and the container "electronic lock" for international transport is also the contribution of standardisation.
Let this invention become an international standard is not easy. Bao Qifan said that of the seven stages of international standard setting, the most difficult was the proposal stage, where two-thirds of countries had to vote in favour of a new project and five countries agreed to join the standard development team.
He recalled, "In December 2017, we formally submitted our new project proposal to the ISO, which was twice rejected, and with the impact of the new crown epidemic, we kept communicating with representatives from various countries repeatedly through dozens of online meetings and hundreds of emails, and in the constant intermingling, experts from various countries went from awareness and denial to reawareness and gradual understanding of our proposal, and finally consensus was reached."
The turnaround came in June 2021, when the new project proposal submitted by Bao Qifan's team for the third time was finally voted on, with the US, UK, France, Russia, Japan, Australia and Denmark all voting in favour.
Digital upgrade shared with the world
According to Li Qing, Vice President of the Ministry of Transport's Institute of Water Transport Science, the preparation of international standards has been long and arduous, and the Bao Qifan team has put in a lot of time and effort, as well as contributing Chinese wisdom to the international container transport market.
At present, the container NFC / two-dimensional code box seal has been in China's inspection and quarantine, domestic trade container transport, dangerous goods transport, petrochemical, energy transport, food and daily chemical products transport, logistics express and other applications.
Ltd. general manager Zhao Chunji introduced, from 2019, Sinotrans Container Transport Co., Ltd. is the first to use NFC / two-dimensional code box seal in line with the provisions of ISO/TS 7352, and in its China-Japan, China-Korea, Southeast Asia routes are widely used.
Bao Qifan introduced that there are already manufacturers mass production of NFC box seals and 2D code box seals, nearly 6 million new box seals sold to the United States, Canada and other places, and the order volume is increasing year by year.
