Commodity management right down to the bale

Before now, Gen10 have discussed the complexity involved in cotton logistics and why this means that cotton Commodity Management systems need to go beyond CTRM in their functionality, and be both cotton-specific and versatile if they are to fully support cotton merchants.

Today, we are taking a more granular look at the bale quality data that is involved in cotton trading, and how this affects the functionality a good cotton Commodity Management System includes.

Quality data sets cotton apart from other commodities

Quality data is managed to the bale level in cotton, which is what makes it an incredibly complex commodity. Bales are frequently transferred between virtual lots as they are added to block stacks and containers, and their unique quality data needs to be linked to each bale at every stage.

A good Commodity Management System, such as Gen10’s CommOS, makes this data management as straightforward as possible. It can automate much of the task by making allocations simple to manage, automating many parts of the process, and storing data at the bale level. This means that when operators make any changes to bales, lots or locations, the quality data is automatically carried forward with no additional input.

The Commodity Management System should also create a digital record of every action carried out. This provides a complete audit trail, but also ensures traceability for every bale, at every stage, back to the gin – and to the farm level if the data has been provided by the seller.

Uploading cotton quality data

The fact that quality data is not standardised, and can be received at different stages of the contract journey, only adds to the challenge. For example, this data may be provided in the format of a gin file, take-up data or pre-takeup file.

With potentially thousands of bales, and therefore rows of information, these files need to be imported into the Commodity Management System. And minimising the amount of data manipulation by your team to do this minimises the associated risk of errors. So in CommOS, when a client needs to upload a file, they simply select the contract and schedule, then can select the file type to upload based on their own file templates. This then automatically imports the bale quality data against the correct virtual lots for straightforward inventory management. And the flexibility within CommOS allows you to upload data to multiple lots from the one file.

A good Commodity Management System is designed to automate your logistics processes, including data management. But if the system is inflexible or does not support all your workflows, the fact that data can be uploaded at different stages or in different formats can be a challenge. However, Gen10’s CommOS was built with flexibility at its core and our clients can set up multiple custom workflows that allow them to manage and automate a variety of different processes with control, according to their own ways of working and risk management policies.

As well as being fully customisable, these workflows include all the flexibility that you need to keep all activities within the workflows and therefore ensure they are compliant with your processes. For example, after quality data has been uploaded, your team will likely need the option to reject some bales or lots.

This is built into the workflows and the next steps can be optimised and automated based on whether lots are accepted or rejected. There is no need for staff to come up with the workarounds that are common in inflexible systems, or to manage any of their processes offline.

When the information changes

Another of the complexities in cotton trading is that sometimes quality data may need to be updated, for example, if it needs to be inspected before being shipped overseas. This is another example of how comprehensive and flexible workflows need to be; as inspections, logistics, documents, and approval processes may be different depending on the buyer’s location.

When the inspection data or other updated information is uploaded, it is once again automatically allocated to each bale. And because of the powerful automation that works across the entire organisation, if the latest data is to be used for pricing, your team can recalculate pricing and create invoices directly within CommOS, with just one click.

And because CommOS includes a complete digital audit trail of every change, your traceability is maintained across any updates.

Cotton quality data can be managed effectively

Although the bale-level quality data can be a challenge in cotton trading, it is what makes it an interesting commodity, and means that managing complexity can be a real, material advantage to your business.

This granular quality data can be a challenge for CTRM and Commodity Management Systems. But if your technology provider understands the cotton industry and has ensured that any automation has the flexibility and versatility to work with your processes, many of the more manual activities can be automated, data can be managed more effectively, and your team can perform at their best, with all the data they need when they need it.

To find out more about how CommOS could work for your own processes, get in touch now.

 

This article is part of a series exploring CTRM and Commodity Management in cotton trading.