Supply chain professionals have to wear a lot of hats these days. But since the events of Sept. 11, the supply chain security coordinator cap has been getting a lot of wear and tear. The issue isn't just making freight transportation more secure, but making it secure and keeping it on schedule. These sentiments were clearly evidenced in a recent PURCHASING Magazine survey, which finds fewer than 20% of shippers reporting shipments have slowed since Sept. 11, despite the increased security efforts throughout the supply chain. Many supply chain professionals cite technology as the bridge between security and efficiency and say shippers need to work closely with carriers to design the best system for all needs.

"The goal of terrorist events is to bring our economy to a standstill," says Stephen Zujkowski, senior vice president at security technology provider Savi Technology of Sunnyvale, Calif. "If we put an anti-terrorist mindset on and make the protocol extremely cumbersome to avoid the terrorist event, we risk achieving the same outcome the terrorists desire."

Among the technologies seeing the most increased interest since Sept. 11 are electronic seals and radiofrequency identification (RFID) technologies for cargo shipments. In the months following the terrorist attacks, some startling statistics emerged about the inspection capabilities of the U.S. Customs Service. Gordon McNeil, director of global security for British 3PL Exel Logistics and a former FBI official, says sea containers will be a major focus for the U.S. Customs Service in the future after it was revealed how few shipments are actually inspected.

"Customs can inspect only about 2% of the containers that come into this country," McNeil says. "So you have a 98% chance of getting your freight into the U.S. if you have terrorism on your mind."

New tracking tags and electronic seals create a wireless local-area network on a single truck or boat and automatically notify the driver and a central point when a seal is broken. Active tags can send signals to periodic readers to convey vital information about the shipments they are attached to, including if the shipment has been opened or tampered with prior to its destination.

Edward Reris, senior analyst with Allied Business Intelligence says RFID technology is being adopted across a variety of shipping industries, but so far the infrastructure cost for a reader network has kept the interest to shippers with limited routes.

"The bulk of the interest in RFID technology has come from rail transport," says Reris. "Multi-modal containers have a lot of people responsible for them from container owners, to shippers and carriers on land and sea."

A recent cyanide scare proved a perfect example of the type of security risk tracking technology can mitigate. In late May, Mexican officials reported a truck with eight tons of cyanide had been stolen after the driver of the truck turned off the approved highway to take a shortcut and then stopped to help a man in a disabled car. Because the cyanide truck had no tracking mechanism, law enforcement officials in the U.S. and Mexico spent nearly two weeks searching for the cyanide before the shipment was discovered dumped in a gully in rural Mexico.

But electronic seals are useless if the person administering the seals is not a reliable employee. Following Sept. 11, it was discovered that a number of suspicious people had applied for commercial driver's licenses in the past year, proving that carrying dangerous shipments or hazardous materials is a focus.

Zujkowski says rapidly developing identification technologies are helping keep shipments out of the wrong hands at shippers and carriers. "Technology is a big part of [supply chain security], but it is also dependent on getting trusted and registered people at the origin point to verify what was put into a container before it is sealed," says Zujkowski. "This way we have a clean starting point at least. We know the person is authorized to say this is a safe shipment and actually saw it packed up."

To combat criminal activity, the U.S. trucking industry recently rolled out a plan to create a trucking army that is more specifically trained to spot suspicious items and increase security. But the reliability of the trucking army is dependent on those truckers being who they say they are and simple ID badges are no longer good enough—now it requires technology to confirm identities. In the future, all shipment handlers and drivers will likely carry identification cards with some type of biometric identifiers to prove who they are and why they are handling a given shipment.

Advanced imaging systems are being used to scan entire trailers and train cars for harmful materials in an expedited manner. One such system is being installed to inspect railcars passing through the B&M International Bridge in Brownsville, Texas. The $1.3 million vehicle and cargo inspection system uses gamma ray technology to inspect cargo freight, reducing inspection time for trains crossing the U.S. border.