E2open expands container triangulation service in U.S.

Supply chain planning software vendor E2open Inc. is continuing to expand the U.S. footprint of its Avantidacontainer-tracking service, announcing today that the maritime container line Zim will offer the service to its U.S. transport partners.

Zim becomes the second shipping line to offer this service to North American transporters, following Maersk's move last month to introduce the Avantida platform to the U.S. and Canada.

Avantida is a Belgian firm whose platform facilitates empty container triangulation, enabling the reuse of an import container for an export booking in a practice known as a "street turn." The company says it provides dispatchers and planners with an accurate, reliable response, helping them to reduce time, transport costs, and carbon dioxide emissions through the reduction of truck miles.

Austin, Texas-based E2open acquired Avantida in 2018 when it took over its parent company, the Parsippany, N.J.-based ocean shipping network provider INTTRA. The deal marked E2open's fifth acquisition since 2016, as the company strives to consolidate its position in the logistics tech field.

INTTRA itself had acquired Avantida in 2017 in a strategy to extend its ocean container tracking practice to land-based activities, a goal that meshes with E2open's plan to streamline information flow between manufacturers, suppliers, shipping service providers, ocean carriers, and other global trade partners.

"We are quickly gaining traction in the U.S.," Avantida CEO Luc De Clerck said in a release. "The partnerships with Maersk and now ZIM reflect the market's eagerness to embrace the Avantida platform. We hope to soon offer the transport community in the U.S. a central hub for requesting optimizations to all major shipping lines."

Avantida says its platform is currently live in Belgium, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Lithuania, Scandinavia, Switzerland, the U.K., Mexico, the U.S. and Canada, facilitating an average of 2,000 transactions a day.