Adapting digital solutions to keep goods moving

We adapted systems and processes to Brexit and built a new customs clearance business. It’s not over yet, the UK has further rules to implement in the coming years.

For three years, Attila Gulyas spent most of his time developing systems to ensure our ferries could continue to carry trailers after Brexit. He spent 2020’s new year’s eve talking to French customs officials. This was the culmination of DFDS’ Brexit preparations that were kicked off in 2018.

DFDS' Attila Gulyas and Chris Coughlin

With the UK’s exit from the EU, a whole new trading agreement, including new rules and processes for customs and physical border inspections, had to be digitised anew.

Transporting trailers by road and ferry looks simple, but behind the scenes complex digital systems handle all the mandatory paperwork and procedures in ports located in different countries that all have their own bespoke systems.

The key aim of the systems, that enable the movement of goods across borders, is to automate for fast processing and elimination of manual work, plus facilitate the exchange of multiple documents between unique national customs systems.

The first months of the Brexit were hectic as employees in border operations and customs worked around the clock to support and fix all the issues that popped up. All, to keep customer’s goods in trailers moving by road and ferry.

But it doesn’t stop here as veterinary controls as well as safety and security checks have yet to be implemented by the UK. Again, requiring new digital solutions.

Follow Attila and colleagues Chris Coughlin and Edwin Schurer in a video as they send a truck across the Channel on a DFDS ferry.