#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #ITALY #ANARCHISM #LIBRARY #News #Journal #Update - (en) #Italy, FDCA, IL Cantiere #14: Logistics and Digital. Digitization is changing the face of logistics from infrastructures to mobility by Daniele Ratti (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Logistics plays a decisive role in the global economy. The sector participates in

world GDP for 12%. The growth forecasts are very respectable, bringing the
absolute value of 9.1 trillion dollars in 2022 to 12.3 in 2027. The maritime
sector plays a leading role. ---- 90% of goods circulate by water and estimates
indicate an annual growth in traffic of 21% in the period 2017-2025 for a global
amount of 3.2 billion dollars. ---- The handling of containers has been the tool
that has allowed the development of the world circulation of goods in the last
fifty years, and an overall reduction in costs of 90%. The leadership is
unquestionably Asian, more than half of the containers are manufactured in China
and among the top ten ports for the handling of goods, nine are oriental, of
which seven are Chinese. Growth forecasts also confirm Asia's leadership until at
least 2026.

It is interesting to note that shipbuilding, in the wake of the development of
maritime trading, is less and less an instrument of world trade and is
increasingly becoming a pure financial asset, like raw materials and energy. It
is no coincidence that investments in shipbuilding are largely financed by
Chinese public banks, Islamic finance and sovereign wealth funds, countries or
power groups that have a direct interest in supporting this sector.

Characteristic of capitalism is the concentration of productive forces and also
logistics moves in this direction. There are three "allied" groups that dominate
the market today: M (Maersk and MSC), Ocean Alliance (Cosco, CMA, CGM,
Evergreen), The Alliance (One, Yang Ming, Hapag Lloyd).

Logistics is going through profound technical and technological transformations,
the creation of super containers is a clear sign of this, but the digital sector,
with its infinite (in perspective) applications, is the most significant part.
Digitization is expanding at an unimaginable pace. Until 2017, devices connected
to the network amounted to 17.5 billion against 35 billion today. The future of
the circulation of goods is in technological platforms.

The value chain, which from the dawn of the first industrial revolution was
identified in manufacturing, is now directed towards the control of information,
whoever owns, manages, processes the data directs the market.

The so-called Big Data are the new energy sources of the market.

Analyzing the mass of data generates knowledge and therefore is a tool for making
decisions in the market.

Interactions on social networks, a "visit" to a website, interconnected
smartphones, generate an extraordinarily large amount of information that can be
analyzed in real time. Big Data therefore constitute real capital in the new
network economy, making new production models possible through their management.
The transport sector, especially the dominant one, i.e. the maritime sector, is
the one with the greatest application of Big Data.

Digitization is changing the face of logistics from infrastructure to mobility.
Data is its lifeblood. The demand for delivery of ever-increasing volumes of
goods, in increasingly shorter times, in turn drives greater digitization.
Digital is and will be the tool to optimize the speed and safety of delivery.
Real-time communications combined with a greater use of the load capacity of
long-distance vehicles are the most immediate and within reach goals for the
digital logistics revolution. The sector where the digital revolution is most
effective is that of maritime transport, we recall that about 90% of world goods
travel by water. The spread of containers, as well as profoundly transforming the
maritime and logistics industry sector, in a relatively short period of time
(roughly in the last fifty years), it in turn pushes for the digitization of
ports. According to the International Transport Forum-OECD, there are 53 highly
automated port calls, or only 4% of global capacity, so there is ample room for
investment and yield margins. The tools for "speeding up" trade by sea do not
only concern quay operations, i.e. loading and unloading of containers, but also
involve the sector of traceability of naval cargo, through the Automatic
Identification System, of the ship or its position its course and speed.
According to the International Transport Forum-OECD, there are 53 highly
automated port calls, or only 4% of global capacity, so there is ample room for
investment and yield margins. The tools for "speeding up" trade by sea do not
only concern quay operations, i.e. loading and unloading of containers, but also
involve the sector of traceability of naval cargo, through the Automatic
Identification System, of the ship or its position its course and speed.
According to the International Transport Forum-OECD, there are 53 highly
automated port calls, or only 4% of global capacity, so there is ample room for
investment and yield margins. The tools for "speeding up" trade by sea do not
only concern quay operations, i.e. loading and unloading of containers, but also
involve the sector of traceability of naval cargo, through the Automatic
Identification System, of the ship or its position its course and speed.

Another significant application concerns the streamlining of customs procedures
through the adoption of the Port Community System or an identical customs and
bureaucratic telematic interface. The major players in the sector MSC, Maersk,
Evergreen, Yang Ming, (we mention the best known), founded the Digital Container
Shipping Association in 2019.

The goal is to develop standard procedures and a platform to streamline ship's
just-in-time port calls and harmonize data, to allow immediate communication
between interested parties along the goods supply chain.

In 2019, the Digital Container Association was formed by the four main maritime
logistics operators (Maersk, MSC, Hapag-Lloyd, One) with the aim of finding
technological solutions for overcoming commercial paper transactions and
automating all bureaucratic transitions both customs and health. It is estimated
that the reduction of administrative costs leads to savings of 15% of the current
total transport costs.

To this end, a joint company was set up between the Danish company Maersk and the
American IBM for the creation of a common platform for intermodal transport
operations with particular attention to container traffic.

This innovation falls within the broad field of computer applications, called
Blockchains, consisting of a web of subjects interconnected with each other to
plan their actions and agreements without the need for any intermediary. If at
the moment this possibility defines a completely "equal" and non-hierarchical
model of economic interaction, considering that there is currently the
possibility that other subjects may join it at any time, it is not excluded, and
the history of capitalism teaches us, that in the future there will be a
hierarchy of the structure. The commercial sector that is profoundly transforming
logistics is that of E-Commerce. E-commerce had the first significant expansion
during the first lockdown of 2020, with a progression of 26% compared to the last
year. The data is closely linked to the global use of the internet which,
coinciding with the first restrictions deriving from the Covid-19, marked a
progression of 35%. Estimates point to an increase in global data for 2026 of
three times the current volume, taking retail sales from 3.3 trillion today to
5.5 trillion dollars in 2026. A new "raw material" is therefore " data, whoever
owns them who has the ability to process them has a better chance of conquering
market shares.

Currently e-commerce is managed globally by the USA and China or rather their
main companies in the sector: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Tencent
and Alibaba. Companies that manage the intangible raw material (data), in all
segments of the digital value chain, i.e. from data collection to the
infrastructures used to convey them (especially through submarine cables. In
other words, data, through cables, replicate the creation of that network of sea
and rail transport which were the indispensable tool of the first industrial
revolutions.The innovations will significantly influence the demand for transport
and logistics services.There is a strong growth in the demand for logistics
operators to process, transport and deliver orders. The first signs in this sense
are already evident, Amazon has declared 450,000 new hires and a plan for another
125,000 resources are in the USA. Another significant point is third-party
logistics (3pl logistics). In summary, 3pl logistics indicates the services that
a company contracts out to a supplier to carry out, simultaneously or in part,
the activities of storage, order preparation and goods transport. The size of
this market was estimated at $956 billion in 2021 with a forecast up to 2030 of
more than double that at $1,990 billion. The future of maritime logistics is
still digitally driven. The new frontier of water transport is represented by
"autonomous ships" or remotely controlled and completely "electrified". Norway is
currently one step ahead of other nations in developing this sector. Industry
bodies and government agencies have established the Norwegian Forum For
Autonomous Ships for project development. Since 2021, the Norwegian fertilizer
company Yara has been implementing the construction of an autonomous and electric
container ship called Yara Birkeland. The end of the works is established in 2024
where, if forecasts are respected, there will be the launch of a ship, for short
sea cabotage, with a capacity of 120 TEU which, without the aid of crew and
fossil fuel, will allow a saving of 90 % of operating costs compared to
conventional vessels of equal size. If what has been commented up to now accounts
for a progressive globalization of the circulation of goods,

 From September 2020 to February 2022 (beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian
conflict) international transport was subject to new risks. The pandemic crisis
and increasingly unstable and fragmented geopolitical scenarios, combined with
the rise in raw materials and energy, have pushed for a redefinition of the
supply chains of goods.

There are two directives imposed by the contingent situation, to diversify the
sources of suppliers, above all to loosen the link with China, the "factory of
the world" for about thirty years. Significant in this regard is the choice of
Apple which has been turning to Indian and Vietnamese suppliers since the
beginning of 2022.

The other aspect, the most important for its effects on transport logistics,
especially by sea, is the restructuring of supply chains by trying to "shorten"
geographical distances as much as possible. Since the beginning of 2022, Ikea and
Benetton have benefited the Mediterranean area to the detriment of the Far East.
I think it is completely immature to talk about the end of globalisation, as some
analysts judge.

We are only "taking measures" of the "novelties" of global scenarios. On the
other hand, flexibility in choices and the ability to adapt to changes are the
lifeblood of profit. In conclusion, the network represents a "new capital" a
capitalism increasingly oriented towards oligopolies and monopolies. The network
is a founding tool and accelerates concentration processes with its innovations.
The major digital platforms are assuming a market domination role (Chinese and
American companies hold 52% of global e-commerce) whoever has the resources and
the ability to innovate is the winner. Capitalist property from the possession of
the means of production is also moving towards the ownership of information and
the management of flows. A capitalism that, through Big Data, "

https://www.veliber.org/archivio/IlCantiere/A3/cant_2023_14/files/cant_2023_14.pdf
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