1. GT Nexus – UN Location Codes

2. 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, Colum​bia Sportswear, DHL, Electrolux, Levi Strauss & Co., Nestlé, Pfizer, and Sea​rs 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 thr​​ough final payment.

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. Sihanoukville

8. 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