Equipping containers with "electronic locks" – Chinas international standards for containers were approved for publication

On March 25, East China Normal University came with good news, a few days ago, the Central Secretariat of the International Organization for Standardization officially released the container international standard "ISO/TS 7352:2023 Container NFC/QR Code Box Seal" led by Professor Bao Qifan of East China Normal University in Geneva, which is a major breakthrough in the formulation of international standards in the field of logistics and transportation in China, and promotes the standardization and upgrading of container logistics with digitalization.

The Department of Science and Technology of the Ministry of Transport congratulated East China Normal University, and the team completed the research and development and industrial application of container NFC/QR code container sealing technology for 8 years, and formed international standards, making positive contributions to improving the intelligent level of international container transportation and reducing logistics costs.

Equipping containers with "electronic locks"

Container is the "cell" of global logistics transportation, in order to ensure transportation safety and clear responsibility identification, each container needs to have a box seal, as a transport handover certificate, if the box seal is opened or broken, it can be used as a basis to judge which link of logistics transportation has safety or management problems.

The invention of the Baoqifan team was to change the seal from mechanized to digital. There are two problems in mechanical box sealing: first, it is easy to be illegally opened or stolen against, resulting in frequent problems such as smuggling, smuggling, and theft of goods in the logistics process; Second, due to the lack of automatic identification function, the relevant information must be manually entered after each installation of the box seal, which is not only inefficient, but also prone to errors.

In order to realize the "real-time, visualized, traceable and big data integration" of container seals, the Baoqifan team invented a series of products such as the sky-ground integrated container monitoring terminal based on Beidou/low-orbit satellite, as well as container NFC/QR code box seals, and the relevant achievements won the first prize of Shanghai Science and Technology Progress Award and the first prize of China Navigation Science and Technology Progress Award.

These inventions solve industry pain points. "The container NFC/QR code box seal is the 'electronic lock' of the container, through which the transportation trajectory and safety dynamics of the container can be monitored in real time, so as to control the flow of goods and realize the whole process monitoring." ”

It's not easy to become an international standard

The container itself is a major invention, and its great contribution to global logistics lies in "standardization", and the contribution of container "electronic locks" to international transportation is also standardization.

It was not easy to make this invention an international standard. Bao Qifan introduced that in the seven stages of international standard formulation, the most difficult is the proposal stage, where two-thirds of the countries vote for a new project, and 5 countries agree to join the standard research and development team.

He recalled: "In December 2017, we formally submitted a new project proposal to the International Organization for Standardization, but we were rejected twice, coupled with the impact of the new crown epidemic, we continued to communicate with representatives of various countries through dozens of online meetings and hundreds of emails. ”

The turning point came in June 2021, when the new project proposal submitted by the Baoqifan team for the third time was finally voted on, and the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Japan, Australia, Denmark, etc. all voted in favor.

Digital upgrades are shared with the world

Li Qing, vice president of the Water Transport Research Institute of the Ministry of Transport, believes that the preparation of international standards is long and arduous, and the team has spent a lot of time and effort on the package, and has also contributed Chinese wisdom to the international container transportation market.

At present, container NFC/QR code box seals have been applied in China's inspection and quarantine, domestic trade container transportation, dangerous goods transportation, petrochemical, energy transportation, food and daily chemical transportation, logistics express and other aspects.

Zhao Chunji, general manager of Sinotrans Container Shipping Co., Ltd., introduced that since 2019, Sinotrans Container Shipping Co., Ltd. has taken the lead in using NFC/QR code box seals that comply with ISO/TS 7352 regulations, and has been widely used on its routes between China and Japan, China and South Korea and Southeast Asia.

According to Baoqifan, manufacturers have mass-produced NFC box seals and QR code box seals, and nearly 6 million new box seals are sold to the United States, Canada and other places, and the order volume is increasing year by year.