Trade and Connectivity Challenge 2021

BACKGROUND

Proper driver education plays a key role in many industries to ensure driver safety. Tools are needed to train drivers on the best practices for driving and to improve the driver’s abilities by identifying any incorrect driving behaviors. This tool should provide timely feedback so that drivers can quickly adopt better driving habits.

In order to keep drivers interested and motivated, there is a need for the app to be gamified. The competitive element will be key in getting drivers to adopt the usage of the tool and improve their driving.

While the fuel source of cars is important in the push to become more eco-friendly, driving behavior also plays a big role in this. The tool should not only teach safe driving behavior, but also eco-friendly driving habits.

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REQUIREMENTS

Technological / Performance criteria:

• Android and iOS mobile applications with suitable backend to support the application.
• Alerts, Notification and Messaging to Drivers based on telematics data imported through API.
• Dashboards to view past driving behaviour improvements and history

Timeframe:

• MVP within 4 to 6 months

Potential market / business opportunity

• Globally driver safety and eco awareness is becoming more scrutinized and thus increased ESG efforts from companies will follow
• Certain businesses rely on third party outsourced labor who may need to be educated on the job on best driving practices

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DESIRED SOLUTION

• An Interactive mobile platform that can educate drivers by providing corrective education after driving behavior input is received from telematics platforms.
• Give the driver a Badge showing them peer comparisons in the same organization.
• Integration of global research in estimated greenhouse gas impacts based on a driving history.

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RESOURCES AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

• Cartrack can provide the Regionalized Business Knowledge and High-Level Technical guidance to help achieve the MVP.
• Startup needs to provide Product and Development Teams
• Cartrack can provide Anonymized Driver behavior and ratings

BACKGROUND

Onboarding SME customers from different regions is difficult as you must take regional localization into account. These differences include (but is not limited to) Language, Pricing, Company Information Requirements, Payment Platforms, and Product Features. Traditionally, printed contracts are manually modified per country to support the needs of corporations. A digital solution is needed that can automatically handle the versatility of different regional companies and accurately capture the necessary information.

Successfully streamlining contract automation and digitalization has proven difficult in the past as there are high levels of product offering mixes and pricing and term negotiations which require management authorization. Data privacy challenges further complicate the digitization process.

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REQUIREMENTS

Technological / Performance criteria:

• Mobile and Web responsive platform that works on any device including devices in emerging and mature markets.
• An AI component that ensures the solution is robust and works regardless of changing variables
• Dynamic configuration that would allow regional data collection to vary based on customer or product. Typical examples would be where a Postal Code can collect an Address in Singapore. The Same postal code would not be of value in Brunei.
• Integration with Social platforms to facilitate faster communication and simplifying data inputs.
• Typical geographic variations: Taxes, Payment Methods (CC vs Wechat vs Debit Order vs GIRO) , Addresses, Signing
• Comprehensive user flows to be able to accurate select and input the correct package and pricing and contract terms

Timeframe:

• MVP needs to be delivered in 3 to 6 Months.

Potential market / business opportunity

• Cartrack would use this solution to onboard 45 000 vehicles per month.
• This product could be Transactional based billing models.

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DESIRED SOLUTION

• A Product that can Onboard new customers efficiently.
• The product will be stand alone, but integrated into the different businesses in their geographies.

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RESOURCES AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

• Cartrack can provide Regionalized Business Knowledge and High-Level Technical guidance can be provided to help achieve the MVP.
• Startup needs to provide Product and Development Teams

BACKGROUND

Traffic Controllers are responsible for the planning of drivers’ schedules and sending jobs to drivers manually. When unforeseen situations arise, for example if a driver goes on medical leave, the Traffic Controller has to re-plan the schedule and notify all affected drivers one at a time. Without an automated process, there is always a risk of human error and complications/mixups may arise.

In addition, Delivery Orders are stored as hard copies whereby at the end of day or next working day, drivers will bring back the signed Delivery Order to the office for matching and scan it back to customers. This is not a time efficient method.

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REQUIREMENTS

To have a system to auto plan drivers’ schedule according to job orders and auto send out notification to drivers of their schedule. Drivers will also receive a soft copy of Delivery Orders so that upon job completion, the recipient will sign off via QR Code scanning and the signed Delivery Order will be sent to the office.

We seek a comprehensive solution that is able to:

1. Plan drivers schedule (for both IGH and FCL fleet) and send out job notification to drivers via the system;
2. E-sign Delivery Order (GKE’s DO or Customers’ DO) and drivers will send e-document to office upon job completion.

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DESIRED SOLUTION

A system that auto allocates drivers’ job schedules based on jobs requirement keyed in TMS and allow Traffic Controller to make amendment to the schedule whenever necessary (e.g. driver take leave or job delayed). With each amendment, the system will also check whether it will affect the other drivers’ job schedule. Once the Traffic Controller confirms the schedule planned by the system, it will auto-send the schedule to each and every driver.

There should also be a feature in the system that allows drivers to retrieve Single or Multiple Delivery Order for each job which requires recipients to E-sign via QR Code. Once Delivery order is signed, the signed document will be saved back to the individual job and email back to the office in PDF form.

BACKGROUND

We currently operate the ISO tanks, and it requires an experienced team to identify, track and monitor all the tanks movement. The team ensures the tanks are recorded and tracked. The tanks will be washed, processed and resend out to ensure that the tanks do not idle and is taken up by our customers. Currently, most of these tasks are performed manually by various stakeholders and difficult to track the movement of the tanks.

The need to track the physical tanks in our overseas depots have been challenging. The record-keeping process is manual and offline, and hence real-time analytics and decision making are not possible. Therefore, impacting on ISO-tank utilization and profitability of the depot operation.

We would like to ensure the physical tracking of the ISO tanks and be able to optimise the time that the tanks are not operational:

• ISO tank identification: the tanks are manually tracked. Once the tank arrives in the depot, the stakeholder keys into the database. The management team must monitor closely with the fleet of tanks to ensure that the cleaned tanks can be utilised by the customers.
• We would like to have the live update of the geolocation of the ISO tanks and know the whereabouts of the tanks. We would like to reduce the idle duration of the ISO tanks.

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REQUIREMENTS

We are looking for solutions that can address one or multiple of the below statements:

• Physical identification, tracking and monitoring of ISO tank before input into database system
• Automate remote tracking and monitoring to reduce human error
• Having a way to track the physical ISO tanks and account for them
• Improve planning, scheduling, and data integration throughout the process

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DESIRED OUTCOME

A technology that can efficiently, accurately, and cost effectively real time physically identify, monitor and track ISO tank containers.

BACKGROUND

The logistics industry has evolved into a state where goods and services rendered is expected to be at the highest level. If it is not, the customer has options easily in queue to render the necessary services immediately, sometimes even at a lower price to gather more volume of service fees.

We are looking to solve the opacity and insights disparity in the current supply chain so that Legend can plan (accurate forecast) to provide appropriate and guaranteed services to our customers (shippers). Current opacity resulted in Bull-Whip effect in the booking of capacity and pricing fluctuations, impacting the profitability and ability to offer services consistently.

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REQUIREMENTS

We are looking for solutions that can address one or multiple of the below statements:

• Automate the different products and services information that employees must key in for sales, operations and maintenance work.
• Ensure the data collected is updated and reconciliation is prompted, if any to be done.
• With the collated data, the ability to process and analyse for the users will allow strategic planning to be done accordingly.
• The need to be able to generate meaningful reports for stakeholders to make better decisions in terms of:
  • Forecasting of operation and work schedule
  • Ways to generate more revenue streams
  • Anticipation of business cycles and strategic planning

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DESIRED OUTCOME

A technology solution that is easily deployable, able to automate processes and automate our processing of data and have recommendations to the various stakeholders.

BACKGROUND

With the push to go green, Lumens is currently one of the largest operators of hybrid vehicles in Singapore with more than 97% of our fleet being hybrid vehicles. To ensure our vehicles are always in good shape, we need to constantly monitor and run diagnostics on the battery in the vehicles.

Existing solutions require the removal of the batteries in order to run such diagnostics and this is not a cost-efficient approach as there will be downtime involved during the removal of the battery and diagnostic.

We are not interested in solutions based on telematics as we find it relies heavily on measurement from metrics outside of the actual real-time battery status.

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REQUIREMENTS

Technological / Performance criteria:

• A software-based solution that can be plugged into the existing On-Board Device (“OBD”) port of our hybrid vehicle fleet to monitor the battery condition of the battery.
• The solution will be deployed on Toyota hybrid vehicles initially and it should be scalable for deployment to other makes of hybrid and/or electric vehicles.
• The solution should be able to provide the end user (mechanics) with a diagnostic of the current status of the hybrid battery so that we can decide if we need to remove the battery to recondition.
• We will evaluate the solution against existing diagnostic systems that require the removal of the battery to gauge the accuracy of the solution.

Cost:

• The solution should not cost more than S$25,000. Vehicle and battery will be provided by Lumens during the development phase.

Timeframe:

• We are looking to develop the solution within 3-6 month for use by Lumens’ fleet.

Potential market / business opportunity

• Given the green push by the Singapore Government, we estimate the market to be about 20k hybrid/electric vehicles in 2021 and the number is expected to grow by 20% annually for the next 5 years.

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DESIRED SOLUTION

The solution should be software-based and running on a portable device (touchpad, smartphone or laptop) and it should be able to run diagnostics on all make and model of hybrid / electric vehicles.

• This will be a collaboration effort.
• Ability to showcase real-life examples of successful applications is highly preferred.

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RESOURCES AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

• The start-ups working on this solution can tap onto Lumen’s large fleet of hybrid vehicles to obtain battery related data

BACKGROUND

In a land scarce country like Singapore, the per sqm cost of space is getting more expensive, increasing exponentially year after year. Therefore, optimisation of space utilisation is the way to increase the yield of every dollar invested in third-party logistics warehousing and inventory management businesses.

When it comes to how much space is currently available for putaway (i.e. process that happens between receiving goods from vendors and having them all put away into their assigned places), the warehouse management system (WMS) uses the logic of calculating only unoccupied locations. The logic applied does not calculate the occupied locations that still have space available. For example, if only 10% of the space is occupied over time through loose piece order picking, that leaves 90% of the space unoccupied and unused. The WMS does not provide the visibility of such available spaces, resulting in a waste of usable space. For now, we have not seen a WMS in the market that is able to resolve this issue.

Similarly, for bulk stacking storage areas, the available space is calculated by captured volume updated into the system. If 3D graphical representation or digital visualisation is provided on the dashboard of the warehouse controller, it will greatly enhance the productivity in the efficient space planning of the operation.

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REQUIREMENTS

The solution should be in the form of a 3D/4D digital twin of our facilities to help our Ops Controllers and Operators work efficiently across multiple locations (different levels or sites outside existing buildings). It should be able to help in increasing operational and cost efficiency by optimizing the productive use of all possible available spaces.

There is also a need for an AI component to map out and provide recommendations on type of cargoes for putaway (e.g. fast to slow moving products) for the spaces available. It would be beneficial if there was some sort of constant iterative process that develops actions to free up more space through consolidation of goods to maximize the PLT Bin Locations to its optimal levels.

The design should not be limited to very narrow aisle (VNA) and selective racking systems only. It should also cover the bulk, floor stacking storage, processing, inbound and outbound staging areas.

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DESIRED SOLUTION

Capturing what our existing WMS cannot show, i.e. a visualisation of warehouse setup with a full view of actual occupancy as broken stowage in Put-away locations can add up to sizable quantities of empty locations.

Ideally, there is no need to mobilise manpower to travel from one warehouse to another, to collect measurements and take photos, to use excel spreadsheets to tabulate the numbers for update and reporting to management.

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RESOURCES AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

• Startup needs to have fundamental knowledge of how a 3PL warehouse is operated owing to multi-client with multi-product dimensions and packaging that demand different ways of handling.
• The solution is not limited to racking, it should also cover buk/floor storage, shelving, cantilever, etc.
• Startup needs deep computerisation skills and technical know-how
• Be the 1st in the market where no one has such feature in their WMS

Example of inaccurate identification of storage situation and expected outcome:

BACKGROUND

Assigning empty container loading bays and collecting laden containers for transtainer from third-party logistics warehouses instantaneously and in real-time is something all drivers desire. Waiting for an operator to search and locate available spots is often a dreaded situation and an enormous waste of time.

Very often, these activities take place after office hours (during the night/over the weekend/public holidays) and as a result, containers are often found dropped at wrong locations. This requires the driver to tediously return to the location and perform shifting/relocation work.

In order to properly address this problem, we need the key information drivers need to be clearly visualized at the gantry of location entrances so that the drivers will know exactly where to place the empty and/or collected containers without any delay.

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REQUIREMENTS

When an import container is dropped off and collected by the driver from the transtainer, the information collected by the system should be propagated to your solution via an API and provide operators at our warehouse ample time to prepare. This will prevent the need to perform urgent last minute rushing to free up loading bays when the trailer trucks arrive, especially during volume surges.

Loading bay instructions should be visible at the gantry of the entrance with a digital LED display. A traffic light system should be in place to queue drivers. When the light turns green, security officers can open the barrier as a semi-automated system. An alarm should sound if the movement of the containers does not go according to plan or if an empty container stays in the bay for too long.

Once an export container is loaded, the booked transtainer time is also propagated to the system via API to provide indicative truck-out time to enhance planning and improve the efficient allocation of loading bays.

We would like to see the auto-allocation and optimization of container loading bays to prevent and avoid congestion. We’d like to deploy a system which provides instantaneous, real-time information to drivers through a display at the gantry of the warehouse entrance which will tell them which container loading bay to drop empty or collect laden containers by the transtainer.

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DESIRED SOLUTION

An integrated solution aided by AI technology together with information from our system through API, to help plan and locate empty loading bays for allocation to laden inbound container shipment as well as for empty containers for outbound shipments.

To reduce the amount of manual work performed by humans hence effectively improves the planning, reduces congestion, faster container empty and laden turnaround time and avoidance of oversight of container stuffing/unstuffing works by warehouse operation.

Key fundamental outcomes are:

1. System provides direction to driver where to collect or drop container
2. Whether stuffing/unstuffing works are completed
3. Improve the usage efficiency of the loading bays
4. Quick effective locating of containers when shunting is carried out
5. Availability of active real-time information for monitoring and tracking of containers within the premises

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RESOURCES AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

• Portnet access and API application feasibility
• GPS, Wi-Fi, Mobile Data Broadband 4G, 5G, Gantry data transponders
• Cross deployment at multiple sites for central control room monitoring

BACKGROUND

Vessels have many compartments (up to 200), all separated by walls/floors and ceilings made by steel plating, meaning that traditional Wi-Fi and mobile networks cannot be used as they are not able to penetrate the separations.

Moreover, establishing a Wi-Fi connection is laborious and time-consuming, as it requires setting up cables between the many compartments on board to ensure connectivity. It is also labour-intensive with regards to maintenance.

Current communication aboard vessels is maintained via walkie-talkies and therefore restricted to audio only. We would like to find a solution which will allow enhance communication with channels that include audio, video, and transfer of digital documents.

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REQUIREMENTS

We are looking for a solution which would encompass the following:

• Connectivity with access to internet, video and voice communication between multiple parties on board vessels and also with external parties (eg: other vendors and individuals who are not on the vessel).
• It should also allow file sharing between parties.
• Connectivity needs to be able to deploy easily and transfer to another vessel during the project duration (2 weeks to 2 years). It should be easy to stop/remove whenever it is no longer needed.
• The solution should be user-friendly and intuitive.

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DESIRED OUTCOMES

To have a connectivity solution that is mobile and easily deployable to different parts of a vessel.

A solution for those onboard to easily communicate and share documents with one another and with those onshore. It should be easy to use, deployable and scalable.

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RESOURCES AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

• Sembcorp Marine can arrange on-site testing for promising solutions.

BACKGROUND

Currently, to construct a vessel, the design is created and shared with the shipyard for production. The shipyard then builds the vessel by blocks using a robotic welding arm in the fabrication workshop and conducts quality checks on the welding seams manually in another separate open location.

However, there are two challenges to the visual inspection. Firstly, scaffolding has to be erected around the semi-fabricated block sections of the vessel. Then, a quality inspector has to go on the scaffolding to go around the block to check all welding seams and mark out welding seams that have defects. Thereafter, the scaffolding will need to be removed before the blocks can progress to the next stage of construction.

This is labour-intensive and time-consuming, as it requires scaffolding to be erected around the semi-fabricated block sections of the vessel. Moreover, some parts are too narrow for a human to access, so the quality check is not perfect.

The acceptance criteria for visual inspection is according to AWS D1.1 under section 6.9.

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REQUIREMENTS

We are looking for a solution which would encompass the following:

• A fully automated system that is able to self-access all parts of the block section to perform visual inspection of the welding seams/connection joints.
• A system that uses AI to perform a visual inspection of the semi-fabricated block sections of the vessel and enhance AI’s capability to analyze these videos and images to detect defects.

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DESIRED OUTCOME

A system that is able to autonomously perform visual inspections of vessels and welding seams on semi-fabricated block sections of vessels, and provide the location of defective welding seams.

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RESOURCES AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

• Semi-fabricated block sections could be provided to test the solution.

BACKGROUND

For over 160 years, Singapore Post (SingPost) as the country's postal service provider, has been delivering trusted and reliable services to homes and businesses in Singapore. Today, SingPost is pioneering and leading in eCommerce logistics as well as providing innovative mail and logistics solutions in Singapore and around the world, with operations in 19 markets. Building on its trusted communications through domestic and international postal services, SingPost is taking the lead in end-to-end integrated and digital mail solutions.

Currently, mails are delivered in bulk to the mail rooms of commercial buildings where they will be sorted and distributed manually to the different departments and locations in the office buildings. There are also interdepartmental mails that are sent daily, between the different departments of an organisation. This is labour intensive, time consuming and unproductive.

As a result, SingPost is seeking technologies that can automate last mile delivery of postal items (mail, packets, parcels, etc) within a commercial building.

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REQUIREMENTS

Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR)/ Personal Delivery Device (PDD) to accurately deliver postal items in commercial buildings

1. Deliver items from the mailroom to specific locations (office, desks) within a building (Every table or mobile device is an address)
2. Deliver interdepartmental mails between different offices, departments. (desk to desk, bypassing mail room)
3. Last step delivery must be autonomous, unattended and safe i.e. pick and place mail/parcel from robot onto designated location on or next to user’s desk, without affecting user or user’s surroundings
4. Able to move in all areas of every floor of the building
5. Able to climb slope of 15 degrees
6. Payload: Up to 20kg of mail and parcels storage
7. AMRs to return to self-charging docks for charging
8. Control system with advanced sensors for collision avoidance, vision guided navigation system, and environment mapping and localization with complied to connectivity and communication protocol
9. Security – Only designated administrator and end users are allowed to access content
10. Customisable compartments on AMR to accommodate items of different dimensions

Nice-to-haves:

• An inductive charging power and battery system with self-charging docks that can power up the device for up to 6 hours of continuous operation
• Efficient obstable avoidance by intelligent sensing which prevent collisions with people/objects and allow it to navigate around obstacle
  • High visibility features (e.g. reflective stickers, strobe lights) should also be present
  • Must be able to be manually handled by operators when brakes are released and weight should be equally distributed, favoring stability
  • Cage/enclosure for items meets Singapore Safety guidelines
• Control System with advanced sensors, vision guided navigation system, and environment mapping and localization with complied to connectivity and communication protocol
• Fleet management system of more than one AMRs
• Smart Navigation that can utilize data, sensors, scanners and any other tools to auto-detect surroundings in identifying and navigating through the most efficient route
• Localization and geospatial mapping (SLAM) as a form of navigation to move between buildings
• An application (mobile and web) that can schedule, monitor and track all deliveries with dashboard and data visualization for admin backend
• Able to meet IMDA guidelines on use of autonomous mobile robots delivery within commercial building and all other regulatory guidelines
• Able to be integrated with existing SingPost platforms via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), including SingPost’s mobile app

Cost:

• To keep the cost of trials below $30K.

Minimum Required Technology Readiness Level (TRL):

• Level 7 (Prototype to be demonstrated in operational environment)

Development Timeframe:

• The proof of concept is expected within 6 months.
• Follow with a trial within the next 1 year.

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DESIRED OUTCOME

Using Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMR) or Personal Delivery Device (PDD) to automate last mile delivery of postal items (mail, packets, parcels) within a commercial building.

This should be a ready-to-implement solution.

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RESOURCES AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

The start-up should be able to propose solutions based on the requirements stated. Additional features in addition to the ones stated are welcomed.

Mail dimensions and existing postage rates can be found in this link: https://www.singpost.com/postage-rate.

BACKGROUND

UPS is one of the world’s largest package delivery companies that provides a broad range of integrated logistics solutions to customers located in more than 220 countries and territories.

On average, UPS delivers about 25 million packages daily around the world. Among this substantial volume of packages, there is a likelihood that undervalued/under-declared shipments or regulated/prohibited goods are being moved through the UPS network.

This can create sizeable risks for UPS, including:

• Full operations shutdown.
• Service affected due to higher customs inspection rate.
• Loss of simplified customs clearance procedures.
• Loss of credibility with regulators.

Traditional solutions to identify these are costly or ineffective:

• Manual key word searches.
• Overhauling internal cross-functional procedural controls.
• 100% package screening.

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REQUIREMENTS

Technological/Performance Criteria:

• The solution should propose a way to accurately determine and inform UPS stakeholders whether a package is undervalued/under-declared or contains prohibited goods/regulated goods without the need to open the package.
  • Content can be identified to the level of granularity (e.g. in the form of HS code classification)
  • Can be mapped against the risky commodities/duty rates and determine its risk level
• It should provide such information ideally before the package is picked up by a UPS driver (or reaches the destination point - at the very least).
• The solution should not disrupt or slow down UPS’ existing operations.
• It should be able to handle any small package moving through UPS’ network (weight and size requirements will be advised later).
• The solution is envisioned to be digital / software-based.

Cost:

• It should require minimal capital investment (if any). Solutions requiring high investments (e.g. acquiring and deploying high-speed scanners) will not be considered.
• The cost to execute a trial will be capped and communicated at a later date.

Potential market/business opportunity:

• While an initial trial would likely be conducted in APAC, an ideal solution candidate should target to be deployed worldwide.
• The final solution shall be able to handle both domestic and international shipments.

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DESIRED OUTCOME

The solution should autonomously and accurately identify whether a shipment is undervalued or under-declared, and determine the likelihood that it contains prohibited goods or regulated goods.