WFS signs long-term tech partnership for Champ’s Cargospot in EMEAA

October 5, 2021: 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 to standardise systems across the WFS group, eliminate paperwork and improve customers’ real-time visibility of cargo handling.

CHAMP is already a longstanding and established partner of WFS, the world’s largest cargo handling organisation 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 smart phone 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.

Pedro Garcia, group chief information officer at WFS, said, “Standardising the platforms we use and utilising the most technologically-advanced tools will allow us to work more efficiently as a global organisation. 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 centre 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.” 

Chris McDermott, chief executive officer at CHAMP Cargosystems, said, “Our collaboration will not only bring value to our two organisations, but also the wider air cargo community.” 

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 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, “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.”