The Congressional mandate for 100% screening of cargo carried on passenger aircraft will take effect in August, 2010. This is a fact; it will not change. The air cargo supply chain is built for speed; adding another step to the process for the purpose of ensuring security has the potential to slow down and disrupt the system with severe economic consequences.

The air cargo system obeys the Laws of Supply Chain Physics; speedy, efficient operations and security are complementary. Adherence to the 5 Principles will allow shippers, the air cargo community and air carriers to develop collaborative management systems and deploy Best Practices solutions to secure the supply chain and expedite the flow of commerce; however, this will take time to implement. The TSA’s Certified Cargo Screening Program provides a flexible framework to enable these systems.

At this writing, a great deal of work remains to be done. The apparent, but deceiving, availability of excess capacity in the current system, combined with a lack of awareness and, in some cases, denial, of the impending deadline and tools available through the CCSP, particularly among the shipping community, threatens to undermine the program and preclude deployment of effective solutions in time to forestall serious, disruptive bottlenecks when the mandate takes full effect.

It is imperative that shippers become aware and knowledgeable of the CCSP to make informed business decisions about how to best participate. At the same time, shippers, their industry associations and the air cargo community must immediately begin working together to develop the standard procedures, protocols and collaborative business processes needed to provide the requisite levels of security without compromising supply chain throughput.

This can still be accomplished, but the clock is ticking. The alternative is to let the “invisible hand” sort the problem out over time, as it inevitably will. With quick, decisive action this messy, costly and painful evolutionary process is avoidable and unnecessary. The time to act is now.