Improving Security and Efficiency of Multimodal Supply Chains Using Monitoring Technology

Multimodal supply chains are characterized by multiple changes of transport modes, vehicles, and transport operators, and hence, the risks for theft, untimely delivery, and freight quality deterioration increase. There is a growing need to manage the security and efficiency of consignments. Tracking and tracing services, which are on the market, mainly concentrate on a single mode of transport, such as road vehicles, or transport units, such as containers. This chapter describes a concept for managing the security of multimodal supply chains using monitoring technology. A profound risk analysis was performed to identify threats and vulnerabilities during the different phases of the supply chain and key threat scenarios. A security service concept was developed to cope with the risks using monitoring technology. The technological solution depends on the needs of the supply chain actors and on the supply chain properties. The service concept was tested by monitoring different international shipments leaving from Finland. Intelligent monitoring devices, which were attached to the consignments, collected information on location and environmental parameters and transmitted in real-time to a background system. The chapter gives an overview of the framework, service concept, and the analysed results of multimodal shipments.