Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) has signed a long-term agreement to move its core cargo management system in Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia (EMEAA) region to CHAMP’s Cargospot Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution as part of its digital roadmap to standardize systems across the WFS group, eliminate paperwork and improve customers’ real-time visibility of cargo handling milestones in support of service excellence.
CHAMP is already a longstanding and established partner of WFS, the world’s largest cargo handling organization with 22,300 employees serving more than 270 airlines at 170 major airports in 20 countries on five continents. The implementation of CHAMP’s SaaS environment, and adoption of its Cargospot Mobile application using modern iOS or Android smartphone or tablet devices, will deliver transformational benefits in terms of eliminating manual processes and paperwork and give WFS cargo handling teams and customers faster access to real-time data.
WFS will seamlessly switch over its EMEAA cargo management system to CHAMP’s Cargospot SaaS in October before commencing a phased introduction of Cargospot Mobile as its teams complete the highly intuitive training provided via CHAMP’s online learning platform, CHAMP Academy. The mobile application will initially go live at WFS cargo stations in the Netherlands, Denmark, Ireland, France, Belgium, Spain, Sweden, and Italy, and be followed by its operations in South Africa, Thailand, and the UK in the second phase.
“Standardising the platforms we use and utilizing the most technologically advanced tools will allow us to work more efficiently as a global organization. This will enhance our customer experience and, ultimately, improve our group performance. CHAMP is a cornerstone technology supplier to WFS and is already at the center of our ecosystem of applications and capabilities. It is also working with many of our global airline customers, so we are investing in this 10-year relationship with confidence,” said Pedro Garcia, Group Chief Information Officer at WFS.
“CHAMP has a solid infrastructure within their control, which ensures the reliability and resilience of their solutions and, ultimately, better performance. This is very important to an ambitious business like WFS as we need systems and suppliers with the ability to scale as we grow.”
“We are honoured to be a long-term strategic partner of WFS. Our collaboration will not only bring value to our two organizations but also the wider air cargo community,” said Chris McDermott, Chief Executive Officer at CHAMP Cargosystems. “WFS customers will benefit from the joint efforts that will enable us to push next-generation applications and technologies at an ever-faster pace.”
Using Cargospot Mobile, WFS and its warehouse teams will benefit from:
- Simplified data capture through touch, swipe, and drag-and-drop actions
- Larger screens on tablets to help remove the paper from the operation
- Reliable connectivity thanks to seamless switching between wifi and 3G/4G/5G connectivity
- Automated validation of user actions to provide immediate feedback and prevent errors
- Electronic checklists to enable warehouse staff and managers to conform to industry and local requirements.
The new technology will also give WFS and its airline customers easy-to-access visibility of what’s happening throughout the cargo handling process, with up-to-date status information on export and import freight shipments, measured against key milestones agreed in respective customer Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
John Batten, WFS’ Executive Vice President, EMEAA, added: “I am sure our customers will welcome this latest investment in our digital roadmap and recognize the improvements it is going to bring. Service Level Agreements are so important to WFS and our customers, so adopting new technologies, which make it quicker and easier to monitor real-time information of cargo handling milestones, makes perfect sense to everyone.
Using CHAMP’s Cargospot SaaS and Mobile solutions will remove paper-based handling processes and help us play a bigger role at an industry level in accelerating the adoption of e-AWBs. It is also essential to support the many other digital advancements we are making. These include the roll-out of kiosk technologies at major WFS stations to improve our truck handling times, which rely on the speed and accuracy of data, truck slot bookings, Track and Trace and a new Service Delivery suite.”
