Carrier members, the classification team at the National Motor Freight Traffic Association, Inc. (NMFTA)™ needs your help.
When NMFTA’s classification team reviews or updates an item’s classification, they rely on a comprehensive, long-established database. This valuable information primarily comes from our own member carriers, helping to ensure accurate and relevant classifications. We’re talking about the Commodity Profile Database (CPD). It’s a collection of data we maintain on the shipping characteristics of various commodities.
Adam Mercer, classification development manager for NMFTA, is encouraging carriers who have not made a habit of submitting this data to start doing so.
“Better data is better for everyone,” Mercer said. “The primary use of this information is to help us accurately develop and update classifications. When we’re reviewing or modifying the classification of a commodity, we rely on data from the CPD to guide our decisions. Providing us with more data benefits all classification system users.”
The CPD contains data on density and stowability, as well as information pertaining to liability concerns and handling issues.
“We use it to build a picture of what shipments of different commodities look like,” Mercer added. “We look at an assortment of things, such as density, dimensions, pictorial markings, and packaging to name a few. When we begin updating a commodity’s classification, we review all the data we’ve collected on that commodity over the past four years.”
While the CPD contains an extensive array of data, the accuracy of the National Motor Freight Classification (NMFC®) improves when NMFTA continually updates the system with the latest information. This is due in part to carriers who have two ways to submit their data.
Carriers can submit shipment data either through a secure FTP transfer site or via email. Submissions vary, with some carriers providing data on the shipments they’ve had over the time period the submission covers. Some submit every month, others every quarter, but NMFTA typically receives a spreadsheet file that includes NMFC item number, dimension, and weight.
“There are several fields to complete,” said Nicole Jones, classification support specialist for NMFTA. “While not all fields are mandatory, there are some critical fields such as cube and weight, and the NMFC number that are essential to calculating density and identifying the commodity. We really appreciate additional information such as packaging, shipper information, and specific dimensions, but we’ll certainly take the cube if that’s all they have.”
When the CPD is current and comprehensive, shippers and carriers benefit the most, as accurate classification helps to ensure their freight is transported safely and efficiently.
“The goal of the classification is to provide a class for commodities, and that class is a measure of the transportability of a commodity,” Mercer said. “The more accurate the database, the more accurate our assessment of the transportability.”
Since the NMFC looks so closely at factors like density, handling, stowability, and liability, having detailed data on these aspects greatly enhances the accuracy and efficiency of the process. While NMFTA uses all of this data internally when developing freight classification, the data remains completely anonymous when shared with the general public.
NMFTA carrier members who are not already submitting their data to the CPD, and would like to do so, can get started by contacting Nicole Jones at nicole.jones@nmfta.org.
