Lloyd’s Register (LR) has initiated a new consortium, the Lashing Exchange Format (LXF), to address the fragmented sharing of container stowage and lashing data in the shipping industry. This collaboration includes major classification societies and software developers aiming to establish a standardized digital format for data related to container securing and lashing calculations.
Currently, stowage plans and lashing software operate separately, resulting in inefficiencies and delays due to the absence of a unified data exchange system. Designers, software providers, and class societies rely on disparate datasets, leading to duplicated efforts and inconsistent inputs, especially as container stacks grow more complex.
The LXF initiative seeks to create a common digital format that allows industry partners to work from a consistent dataset throughout the approval process. Building on LR’s experience with its LashRight software, this open standard is designed for cross-industry use, rather than being limited to any single class society.
With most major classification societies and lashing-calculation software developers on board, the consortium represents over half the market for container vessels and related systems. Nick Gross, LR’s Global Containerships Segment Director, emphasized that standardizing data is crucial for improving approval processes amid increasing operational demands in the sector.
Share it now
