Metro join global experts in Paris

UN/CEFACT is the United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business, which is working to automate and harmonise trade documents and the exchange of information in the international supply chain. The inclusion of Metro’s Technical Solutions Director, Simon George, in this respected forum is an acknowledgement of the leading technological role Metro have in the global freight forwarding sector.

Simon (pictured 3rd from right) is one of 200 experts around the world in the transport and logistics domain, approved by Head of Delegation, who lead the technical work that develops UN/CEFACT standards and recommendations.

The vast majority of Simon’s UN/CEFACT work is done virtually, with experts meeting physically in UN/CEFACT Forums twice a year, one in Geneva and one hosted by a UN member State, in order to coordinate their work.

The UN/CEFACT Transport and Logistics domain met at GS1 in Paris earlier this month, with attendees from many areas including UNECE, DCSA, Shipping lines, SMDG and Traxens amongst others.

The forum’s packed two-day agenda featured 16 items for consideration, including some of the most important, revolutionary and transformative digital initiatives in the freight and supply chain space.

Feedback from UN/CEFACT’s experts affects and guides the direction of £multi-million R&D, trade and regulatory projects alike such as CORE.EU (Data pipeline), eCMR and the VERMAS standard message.

Some of the most important collaboration projects in recent times, including Smart Containers and the DCSA’s newly published Track & Trace standard conform and align with UN/CEFACT models and standards.

Metro Shipping’s very own visibility tool and platform MVT is written and conforms to UNCEFACT data sets.