hen Qatar Airways finishes refitting its freight terminal at the Doha airport, cargo General Manager John Batten is hoping to have the facility certified by the Transported Asset Protect Association. That follows the group's
recent certification of AirBridge Cargo, making the Russian freight airline the latest operator to get the seal of approval from the shipper-led organization.
"It truly is a professional organization, much needed in our business," says AirBridge president and CEO Stan Wraight. "It brings together all the elements of the logistics chain into an open and frank discussion, and also serves as a benchmark for what airlines and all the industry serving air cargo processes should achieve."
Interest from such companies shows how well established TAPA's name is becoming in air cargo, and illustrates how awareness of its security procedures is spreading around the globe. Already well established in the United States, Europe and Asia, the group has recently formed two new chapters, TAPA South Africa and a TAPA Brazil.
Thorsten Neumann, chairman of TAPA Europe Middle East and Africa, says a Dubai chapter is being formed under the leadership of Emirates Airlines, and includes the involvement of the Dubai airport police.
It's a dramatic expansion for an organization that started as the Technology Asset Protection Association in the U.S. in 1997 with handful of concerned manufacturers of high-technology goods. Theft of goods in transit was spreading right alongside the Internet-fed explosion in high-tech shipping and the companies believed common standards would help address the problem. Realizing there was a global problem, TAPA EMEA and TAPA Asia quickly followed.
The association is reaching out to other industry groups to adopt their standards. It is expanding from its original base in forwarding and ground transportation to look at security in air and ocean freight, and to connect with U.S. and European initiatives against the terrorist threat to cargo.
More recently, the group changed its name this year, swapping "technology" for "transported," to appeal to a wider range of shippers - or, more accurately, to recognize the growing interest in common security safeguards across the shipping world.
"It is a recognition that the same security standards that are needed for a pallet of mobile phones applies for example to a pallet of high value pharmaceuticals," says Glenn Nilsson, global supply chain security manager for Hewlett Packard and chairman of TAPA Americas.
The name change has already had an effect. TAPA is three separate, but related organizations, with the U.S., EMEA and Asia branches each having their own members. The EMEA branch has some 200 members and associates listed on its Web site, compared to 70 or so for TAPA Americas.
Neumann says there has been a big surge in membership, half with 50 companies joining in 2006 and 47 in the first five months of 2007.
Among them were pharmaceutical firm Astra-Zeneca and fashion company Gucci. Neumann says other big pharmaceutical companies have been contacted, including Glaxo SmithKline and Sanofi-Aventis, and he sees opportunities in other high value areas such as watches, sporting goods and duty-free goods. Athletic shoes manufacturer Nike is a longstanding member.
TAPA's focus now is on what it calls Freight Security Requirements, which were developed for forwarders and logistics companies.
It runs a certification program for these requirements, which is independently audited by German standards body Germanischer Lloyd. Truck Security Requirements have also been published but a certification program is still being developed.
Nilsson says the organization wants to extend its reach into the trucking sector, although he notes the forwarders that follow TAPA standards - including EGL, Schenker-BAX and Panalpina - already impose some conditions on their trucking contractors. Security experts say the trucking portion of transport is the most vulnerable to theft.
Nilsson also would like to extend TAPA standards to cover the air portion of transport, something that is a key priority in Europe too.
"We have six airline members, and we have a lot more airlines interested," says Neumann. "On the airport side we have Fraport [managers of Frankfurt airport] and we are trying to get other airports and handling agents involved."
In addition, TAPA is in talks with John Edwards, head of cargo security for the International Air Transport Association, with the aim of increasing airline involvement.
The focus here will be on ground handling. As Neumann points out, there is little risk of theft once the aircraft has left the ground. Yet, some recent high profile cases at London Heathrow Airport and Frankfurt Airport have shown cargo is still vulnerable to theft even when in the cargo terminal or on the ramp.
For this reason, TAPA's main push with IATA is to make airlines more aware of the ground handling risks. Ultimately the association would like to develop a ground and ramp-handling version of the Freight Security Requirements.
Another goal for TAPA is to extend its reach into the developing world.
Both Nilsson and Neumann say multinational companies need the same security for their products globally. But can standards drawn up in the USA or Europe work in less ordered parts of the world?
Neumann points to TAPA South Africa, which was set up recently in the wake of some high profile cargo thefts in Johannesburg. The local chapter there adopted the TAPA standards but is introducing some local twists into its Freight Security Requirements, such as not trucking valuable cargo by night.
The FSR and TSR standards include a lot of common sense measures that can apply in any part of the world. Examples include transporting high value cargo in hard-body trailers rather than soft-sided ones, and ensuring valuable loads are not given to novice drivers.
Drivers also need to be briefed about how to raise the alarm if a theft occurs, with one requirement being that all of them should have a mobile phone.
"That might sound obvious in Europe or the U.S., but is not so common in the Middle East or Africa," Neumann says.
Other requirements include ensuring only trusted staff have access to information on high value shipments - inside tip-offs play a major role in cargo crime - and such simple measures as leaving brand names off boxes and not using black shrink wrap around pallets. To potential criminals, such things simply advertise the high value nature of the contents.
In the near term, Nilsson also sees an important role for technology itself as a guard against crime. Relatively small devices can be concealed in boxes of valuable products, and then tracked by satellite if shipments are stolen.
"We are getting to a point from an investment perspective where this technology is starting to make sense for high value items," Nilsson says.
Neumann, meanwhile, stresses the Freight and Truck Security Requirements are constantly being updated to take into account new technology and threats. The FSR has just been updated, and the TSR will be updated next year.
Still, the group's reach isn't as great as its members would like.
In the Americas, Nilsson admits TAPA has little reach into Latin America so far, but he hopes the recent launch of TAPA Brazil will soon lead to chapters forming in other countries, such as Mexico.
In Latin America, Nilsson says, hijackings and threats of violence tend to be more of a problem, whereas in the US thefts tend to be of whole trucks left unattended. In Europe, truck rest stops are a particular target, and TAPA EMEA is working with the European Union on an initiative to create safe places for trucks to park.
Another area both TAPA organizations are exploring is how to link into government initiatives against terrorism.
Soon after the September 11 terror attacks, some officials in the U.S. government's nascent security apparatus turned to the TAPA anti-theft standards as potential guidelines for operating safeguards against potential terrorism in the supply chain.
Now, Nilsson says there have been talks with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency to see how TAPA standards can fit into the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, the well-received program that enlists shippers and logistics operators in certifying security for crossborder transport.
But Nilsson admits anti-terrorism measures are much wider in scope than TAPA standards, covering the whole supply chain. "We are just a slice of that, but we obviously want to do all we can to support that program, and see if there are areas where we can strengthen our standards to fit," Neumann says.
In Europe, Neumann talked with the Transport and Tax departments of the European Commission to see if TAPA standards can be linked to its proposed Authorized Economic Operator program, an E.U. version of C-TPAT. One idea being considered is for TAPA certification to be part of AEO accreditation.
"But the biggest challenge is that every country has a different view of what should be included in the AEO program, so discussions are ongoing," Neumann says.
TAPA EMEA is also looking at the E.U.'s known shipper program, and talking to the International Standards Organization about its ISO-28000 for supply chain security. And it is in discussions with CLECAT - the European organization for national freight forwarding associations, and Freight Forward International, which represents the major European-based freight forwarders.
For the company's involved, the real question is whether the attention - and investment - required to reach TAPA's benchmarks really works.
Nilsson insists it does, saying an independent audit of 24 TAPA Americas members found they saved $483 million over five years by applying TAPA standards, an average of $20 million per company.
"The loss from a theft is not just the loss of the goods, but the cost of lost market share, unhappy customers and making claims," says Nilsson.
"In fact, it has been calculated that the actual loss is on average five times the value of the goods stolen. So it is vital that security is built into the supply chain right from the start."
