SAF is an open source initiative to create an automation framework standard offering a broader cross industry spectrum shifting away from today’s current practice to automated machine control in maritime operation.

 

Process Decomposition

  • SAF decomposes logistics processes into parts - engagement processes and describes them.

  • Engagement is a contract between two parties. One party - Requester - requests certain services from another party - Provider. Parties in the engagement are either business entities, individuals or groups.

 

SAF Application

  • Distributed (“pier-to-pier”) application , which automate particular engagement process
  • Consist of Requester, Provider and Notified Party components
  • Components use Engagement API to communicate

 

Engagement API

  • Formal description of the messages exchanged between the components. The API is defined using Proto 3 Data Definition Language
  • Requester creates a unique engagement identifier, which is used to reference the messages exchanged as part of the engagement process.

 

SAF Network

  • Consists of Virtual Offices (VO), single Registry Service and Payment Gateways.
  • The nodes of the SAF network exchange messages supporting the execution of the engagements.

 

SAF Virtual Office

  • A set of SAF applications that manage business operations of a particular participant (individual or group)
  • Each SAF participant has its own virtual office
  • Always available on the Internet
  • Has a unique SAF identifier
  • User Interface for VO can be web, mobile web, native mobile, native desktop or combination of the options.
  • Hosting models: participant premises, dedicated online service, commercial Software as a Service (SaaS)

 

Registry Service

  • SAF Registry is a Global Internet Service which facilitates discovery of the VOs
  • Registry record for each participant contains the SAF Identifier, portfolio of engagements the participant supports and the Internet addresses (URL) for the engagement end-points
  • All active SAF VOs are registered in the SAF Registry
  • SAF Registry performs as an Identity and Access Management Service

 

Payment Gateway

Commercial Online Payment Gateway Service (or multiple gateways services) . The service receives payment details from the merchant system and processes the payment. Participant Virtual office or Registry Service (on behalf of multiple participants) plays the role of merchant system.

 

File Sharing

Files in various data formats used in the industry such as EDI, pdf, Excel can be “shared” by the virtual offices as long as the virtual office remains available on-line.