Dilshan Fernando, APL's Manager of Information Resources in Sri Lanka, keeps busy all the time.

Dilshan's job is particularly important because of how much the shipping industry relies on the power of information technology (IT) to move goods from place to place. Customers anywhere in the world who are shipping products in or out of the Port of Colombo in Sri Lanka expect to be able to track their shipments in real time through the Internet. They expect to be able to reserve space for a shipment and handle paperwork by computer, and they expect that all of these services are available—and accurate—24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

APL uses IT to make international logistics easy for its customers. Customers can use the APL web site to trace a container (you can trace the Boomerang Box by entering its container number, NUSU151066, in the box marked 'Trace' at www.apl.com). Customers can also sign up to receive automatic e-mail notification about the whereabouts of their cargo. (You can try this with the Boomerang Box too. Simply address an e-mail a message to this address: track@apl.com. Then type in the Boomerang Box container number, NUSU150166, in the subject line. Don't type anything in the text of the message. In a few minutes, you'll receive an e-mail back from APL with information on the Boomerang Box's location.)

Dilshan and his colleagues at APL around the world make these and other IT applications work so that customers and sales reps have good, up-to-date information about the whereabouts of each and every shipment.

To prepare for his job, Dilshan completed a National Certificate in Information Technology as well as Network Technology coursework at Sri Lanka's Colombo University. His job has changed quite a bit since he started at APL in 1992 because technology has changed, and he is constantly working to keep up and make APL a leader in shipping technology.

Like IT managers all over the world, Dilshan spent much of 1999 preparing for Y2K, reprogramming the computers to accept the calendar change to the year 2000.

For most people, preparing for Y2K was a busy time. But for Dilshan, it was even busier than usual, as he was asked to take over Y2K work for all of APL's offices in India. How did he respond to that challenge? Download the case study to learn more!