The Australian Logistics Council (ALC) has announced that it has endorsed the Australian Transport Label Guideline developed by GS1 Australia for the Australian Transport & Logistics Industry. Based on GS1 global supply chain standards and best practice gathered via the ALC Supply Chain Standards Work Group, the guideline provides guidance to industry on how to physically identify and label logistic and transport units to support efficient transport management processes.
The guideline includes the information required by transport operators and label formats that have been specifically designed to enable integrated tracking of freight across multiple transport carriers, reduce relabelling and duplication, and reduce costs in the transportation chain. The Australian Transport Industry Label Guideline will deliver a wide range of benefits including a roadmap for Australian transport companies to move from current manual processes where they still exist to full automation, i.e. scanning, electronic transport instructions and transport status notifications via EDI between buyers and sellers of transport & logistic services. The standard identification of transport items of any composition, whether a single carton, a pallet containing many cartons or a bundle of steel, will effectively reduce waste and cost of re-labelling freight as it travels across a multi-leg supply chain journey while providing a common tracking identifier to support end-to-end visibility.
The development of this guideline commenced in 2012 with the establishment of the ALC Supply Chain Standards Work Group which has enjoyed consistently strong industry collaboration and participation from key players in the Australian Transport & Logistics Industry including operators and traders.