Mr. Bao Qifan, the Revolution Caused By A Little

A palm-sized "red box", quietly hung on the bolt of a container, which is only worth 50 yuan. But this inconspicuous "red box" chip contains almost all the information of the container.
 
In the 1980s, the grab he invented win him titles of "grab King," and "workers inventor". Since then, he has been directly involved in about 130 technological innovation projects, applied for and been authorized 51 national and international patents, eight of which won the national patents, 9 of which won the International Gold invention.
 
In 2006, with his container RFID device (the "red box") leading intelligentization, automation in port operations, he won 4 Golden Awards in  Paris International Invention Exhibition. Because of this, he became the person who have won the greatest number of gold in this most authoritative international invention exhibition in the last 105 years ... At that time, the President of the France jury have predicted that his invention will lead to a revolution which will change the mode of human transportation.

On June 3, in the Belgium Zeebrugge Port interconnection Symposium  held in Shanghai, the journalist from Shipping China interviewed this legendary "inventor." He is the Vice President of Shanghai International Port (Group) Company Limited - Bao Qifan.

"Transparent" container
The intelligentization and automation of the container is what we must do to build Shanghai into an international shipping center, which is also SIPG’s development needs.

As early as 2001, SIPG has carried out research on container RFID. On March 10, 2008, a liner from SIPG to the United States Savannah Port which began the world's first RFID container operations on international routes. Up to now, RFID container-US routes have a total of 46 sailing voyages and have completed 6746 TEU for test, experiment results show that the system is running properly, you can implement real-time monitoring of container transportation. In the past six months, the logistic operators from Canada, Japan and other countries, especially food suppliers, take the initiative to find the group, asked to open the electronic label route, in order to ensure the safety of goods.

Journalist: What are reasons for the invention of container RFID?  
Bao Qifan: In recent years, in the whole process of container transport, security problems occur from time to time. The situation, such as illegal migration, smuggling, and theft is particularly serious. We can say that every year the container theft cases repeat constantly. Therefore, the modern container logistics has an urgent need for an intelligentized RFID system which can record the flow of information of box, goods as well as the related security information during the container transportation in real-time mode. In this way, we can improve the transparency, security and efficiency in container transportation, thus improving the overall container logistics service levels.

The transparency of our container transportation is not enough, for example, a cargo owner intends to transfer his cargoes to the U.S.A. He orders a freight forwarder, after which the freight forwarder will be responsible for cargoes; and cargo owner lost control of cargoes at the same time, and he knows nothing of transportation process until the cargoes arrive. Sometimes liners have been full and cargoes will be stranded, but cargo owner is informed that his cargoes have been shipped in liners. Under this situation the cargoes are not under control. Modern transportation values transparency exceedingly. Our new system under developed is designed to achieve this aim.

Break-through in Container RFID
As the biggest container transportation, largest cargo-handling capacity and amount of containers produced nation, China never draft any international standard rules until International Standard of Container RFID. On the 16th assembly of the ISO Container Communication and Identification Committee, after five hours discussion, delegates from ten nations and areas voted through the new International Standard of Container RFID proposal, and pointed Mr. Bao Qifan in charge of this.

Journalist: How does the Container RFID System realize real-time online?
Bao Qifan: This system means we operate online at first time. The “whole process” means from container sealing to unsealing, and it is an integrated supervising system.

In another word after locking and installing our electronic tag, anyone who is authorized could surface the whole logistics process, including the specific time we locked container, category cargo and the port of arrival. (Electronic Container Tag, also named Electronic Lock) Because it integrated with RFID (Radio Frequency IDentification), the information of the container will be transmitted online when container passes the special reader installed at the port entrance. If this container is unpacked, the container tag will alarm immediately and inform the network-link person; even the chairman of port will be informed.

The information of the container will be transmitted online as soon as it passes readers fixed on the bridge crane. The whole logistics process is supervised online from sealing to unsealing time.

Journalist: What is the current status of the system application, and what further cooperative plans related to this system can we expect? 
Bao Qifan: We have already applied this system for more than 6,000 TEU in the course between China and America. SIPG has also established the lane from China to Japan and Canada. We have enacted national classes for the system application, meanwhile, received the authority to enact the international standard for its application. As a result, China has broken through the ‘Zero’ in enacting international standard.

Actually CEO of Shippingchina Mr. Kang Shuchun has mentioned about it today. This system can be put into lots of industrial practices by cooperating with Shippingchina. Meanwhile, Mr. Kang Shuchun has recently put forward innovative concepts. He claims the system can be connected to insurance company, custom department, inspection department and bank.

Take insurance company for example, if my shipment arrives in discharge port with short of 10 TVs, what will be the causes? Does it happen when loading the cargo, or has my shipment been stolen during the transportation process? No one can really tell. Now we can be sure with the application of this system. The system records can tell you when the exact time is and where the exact location is this shipment were stolen. In addition, the evidence is real time online, as a result it is convincing. 

Shanghai is open, so is SIPG  
Journalist: What is the critical problem in the development of SIPG?
Bao Qifan: Port mainly has service functions in its nature and is the hub for logistics. The essential of port is to serve the trading industry and society. The port throughput will increase as the development of exporting & importing industry.

Nowadays, port should do a better job in its own responsibility to enhance port’s capability and service capacity. In the past, many ports ignored the improvement of service quality, but only focus on developing facility. It is time for all of us to change our minds. Consequently we need to apply advanced system, innovative formula for management process, and create more effective organizations to improve our core competency. I believe that is the critical problem for today’s port industry.

Journalist: Zeebrugge Port comes to Shanghai and organizes this industry event today, what impacts do you think it will have on SIPG?
Bao Qifan: I think Zeebrugge Port’s industry event is great and will create positive impacts on SIPG. Zeebrugge chooses to have its event in Shanghai, it will surely promote the development of SIPG. To be honest, the fact is they find us, which says they concern about Shanghai, and are interested in the market. They target SIPG as an important potential business partner, which means they put SIPG in the world shipping ‘map’. Zeebrugge port’s event actually helps SIPG in marketing to some extent.

Editor: John Sun