Buyers hear about the typhoon from her first

Lin runs exports at a big drone maker in Shenzhen. Her containers leave from Yantian, one of the world’s busiest ports. When a typhoon comes, ships wait at anchor, and her buyers in Europe hear about it a week late. Lin spends her mornings phoning forwarders to find out where the vessel is. Angry buyers call her before she can call them. With xMap Flows, Lin built Navigator. Every hour, around Yantian port, Navigator listens for the container ships, keeps the ones carrying her containers, checks the wind for the next three days, judges whether each one will sail on time, and tells her buyers before they ask. On Monday, Navigator sees typhoon winds reaching the port on Wednesday, with her vessel still at anchor. Twelve buyers get a new date that morning, five days before they would have asked. Two thank her and move their launch. Lin still can’t stop a typhoon. Her buyers just hear about it from her first.

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