The container risk evaluation concept

Abstract

The international supply chain brings a wide range of threats: including the smuggling of illegal goods and substances, and the tampering with sea containers in order to hide nuclear, chemical or other weapons in them. Moreover with the introduction of House Resolution 1 (or “100% scanning law”) marine ports may face a problem of increased workload and unacceptable bottle-necks in their work flow as a result of scanning of every container. To improve the security of supply chains, there is a need to assess potential risks. The purpose of this study was to develop a concept for risk evaluation of sea containers bound for the USA and EU. The risk assessment should be efficient, cost effective and not cause big delays in work of marine ports. The investigation was conducted on how logistical data which is provided to customs authorities by all supply chain participants as well as different container inspection technologies (e.g. x-ray) can help to enhance the security of an international supply chain. The main research questions which were addressed in the project are: ii * which exact information is needed for container risk evaluation; * how this information can be evaluated; * how to integrate the risk evaluation process into the supply chain. As a result of the Master’s project a semi-automatic evaluation approach as an alternative to the “100% scanning law” was suggested. A prototype supporting the evaluation of security relevant container and supply chain data was developed for the evaluation of the concept. The developed concept together with the prototype reduces the need for a container scan and introduces a possible green lane scenario, enhances security through additional security related information and supports customs/border personnel during the evaluation of container security risks.