The $5.25 billion Panama Canal expansion project has made substantial progress as it is nearing the halfway completion point. The initiative will double the capacity of the canal by building new locks to accommodate post-Panamax ships. These ships span the length of three football fields and are too long, heavy, and wide to fit through the existing locks.

It may be hard to believe that one of the world’s largest producers of wines and spirits once lacked visibility of its ocean shipments and carrier performance levels. But back in 2004, Brown-Forman had to rely on the tracking systems of individual carriers to keep tabs on product in transit, with no single platform to monitor the movement of popular brands like Jack Daniel’s, Southern Comfort, and Korbel.

Brown-Forman began looking for a software suite that could provide a central repository while navigating the highly regulated alcoholic beverage industry, where strict records are essential. The company picked Amber Road (then Management Dynamics).

Amber Road, a leading provider of global trade management solutions, announced today that  Flextronics, a leading electronics manufacturing services provider, selected its Restricted Party Screening (RPS) On-Demand  solution to automate the screening of partners, customers and vendors. Flextronics’ objective is to maintain a low export  risk profile while expediting screening.

With a global network consisting of more than 30  countries on four continents, Flextronics needed an improved solution for global denied party and embargo screening, global export  license determination, and ECCN (Export Control Classification Number) validation in order to  preserve a high compliance rate.

International trade is a critical component of the US economy, with US imports alone amounting to $2.2 trillion in 2011. The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the primary agent charged with ensuring the smooth flow of trade. A recent report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) analyzed the US import process and uncovered complex challenges CBP faces in creating import policy.