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PEIR helps track faulty party of container damage

[ October 11, 2017   //   ]

With an estimated 17 million metal shipping containers in circulation around the world, making approximately 200 million trips a year, so it’s not surprising that large numbers are damaged at some point during transit.
Determining who was at fault for the damage takes hours and may involve legal costs for all involved in interchange points: ports, trucking companies, rail terminals, distribution centers and container depots.
Currently, a trucking company delivers the empty container to a container depot after being unloaded, ending its worldwide travel assignment. The container depot inspects the container and punches vague codes into a hand held computer or on a piece of paper, similar to the piece of paper you get when documenting rental car damage. The container enters the yard damaged and an estimate is written off the interchange codes and sent to the steamship company for approval.
The steamship company will typically come back to the depot and ask them to go out into the yard and take pictures as proof of damage. The repair manager must leave their desk, drive out into the yard, find the container, take pictures, come back into the office, download the pictures and send them to the steamship company.
Then they will work back through all the container interchange points to see who is at fault and who will pay. If there are disputes, the long process of emails and telephone calls begins.
For that reason, TCompanies has released PEIR (Photo Equipment Interchange Receipt), a new technology advancement that with visible, irrefutable recordable evidence within Blockchain will help the transportation and logistics industry better assign costs based on responsibility for damaged shipping containers.
“A picture is worth a thousand words, and in this case, lower costs and many nights of better sleep for anyone working with shipping containers,” said Tom Burke, CEO of TCompanies.
Burke explains that with PEIR, there are no more “missed” damages or questions about when, where, who and the condition of the equipment at the point of interchange. PEIR streamlines the inspection and documentation into a quick and reliable mobile app process. PEIR’s patent pending process establishes a verifiable photographic record for the equipment being interchanged between parties and the record is provable with the Bitcoin Blockchain.
After a simple registration process, the user downloads the application to a mobile device, logs in, and is ready to start. Personnel at inspection points or truck drivers in the field are guided through the inspection process with a step-by-step set of prompts. The documentation of equipment numbers is verified through the PEIR automated identification process.
Point a mobile device’s camera at the truck, chassis or container number, snap a picture when prompted, and the necessary information is instantly collected from the image. By answering all preliminary questions, PEIR is able to determine what images will be necessary to document the equipment at hand. During this process, any damage on the equipment can be flagged and identified for later use.
Before the interchange is completed, a summary is provided for the user to review and revise if necessary. Within minutes, the entire report is then available through a Blockchain-enabled web app allowing authorized users to trace the history and images associated with the equipment. The verification system that establishes the time, date and authenticity of the photos of a container is tamper-proof and based on patent pending technology.

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