South Korea's Hanjin Shipping is working with its information technology affiliate CyberLogitec and IBM Korea in a KRW50 billion (US$53.1 million) project in a bid to become a premier total logistics company.A company statement said Hanjin has been involved in the 'Process Innovation'(PI) programme since February last year. A team of 320 PI staff have been engaged in the project aimed at helping Hanjin Shipping to shed "its old image of a shipping company" and come up with a new innovative process in May 2007. "The PI project will overhaul the current work process and IT systems by bringing advanced management models, differentiated customer service competency and advanced IT competency while moving on to a strategic structure with an emphasis on responsibility," the statement said.
Hanjin Shipping president and CEO J W Park said: "As a leading global carrier, the company is on its way to introducing a customer-centric and profitability-driven decision making system to ensure competitiveness." The statement said the shipping industry was keeping tabs on the company's new initiative in the expectation that PI will provide an innovative management model to other shipping companies globally, while bringing the competitiveness of Korean carriers to a higher level.