GT Nexus – UN Location Codes
GT Nexus GT Nexus operates the world's largest cloud-based business network and execution platform for global trade and supply chain management. Over 25,000 businesses across industry verticals, including adidas Group, Caterpillar, Lenovo, Columbia Sportswear, DHL, Electrolux, Levi Strauss & Co., Nestlé, Pfizer, and Sears share GT Nexus as their standard, multi-enterprise collaboration platform. This enables all network participants to operate against a core, real-time and always on set of information across multiple supply chain functions, allowing them to optimize the flow of goods, funds and trade information from the point of order through final payment.
Information Model for Network Orchestration Supplier Finance Provider Customs Broker 3PL Logistics Provider Carriers Enterprise Order Invoice ASN Inspection Certificate Customs Change Accounts Payable Single version of the truth All parties operating on a shared platform Every party represented once Single shared view Digital automation of supply chain processes Multiple ways to connect
Standards As a networked platform, use of standards is vital to insure that all participants on the platform understand each other Our standard for cities and ports is UN location code Examples of where we use UN location codes: Purchase Orders Advance Ship Notices Ocean Bookings Shipment Status Messages
Process for UN Updates We process new codes only. Updates to existing codes, for the most part, ignored. Our experience is that codes from the UN have many errors – notably multiple codes for the same place. We have heuristics to identify codes which require manual validation the rest are uploaded.
Main Issues When UN changes code for an existing place (Shanghai, etc.), it causes great difficulty for us. We have thousands of parties sending us data. We can’t tell them to all change at once. Our data is normalized, to allow, for instance, users to search for all shipments from Shanghai. When there are two codes for the same place, it makes this difficult. Xingang is Chinese for “New Port,” not a place. Many customers confused about this. Not very clear what level of granularity codes are assigned. City / District, etc. In general, there is inconsistency from country to country in how codes are managed.
Sihanoukville
Recommendations Better standards on how to manage codes to ensure consistency from country to country. Advance notice to members of this group of changes to come. At least one year notice when changing an existing code for a city. Better yet, do not do this. Allow members to comment on proposed changes and additions to codes, even if the city/port is in another country. Crowdsourcing will improve quality of data! Better handling of the various New Ports (Xingang) in China Priority of DMR originating from this group Better notification of status of DMR