Shipping lines are playing major role in economic development in every country. They are the backbone of the international trade in every industry. Therefore, optimizing operations in these firms would be of a great importance and this could be effectively done through IT-based solutions. Therefore, this study was carried out to explore an indepth understanding on whether there is a feasibility to optimize shipping line operations through increasing the usage of IT solutions. First, the study tries to understand the challenges in shipping line operations and explore the IT-related opportunities to overcome these. This study used both primary and secondary data to achieve its objectives. Secondary data were used to identify current issues in shipping line operations and they were collected from shipping line. Secondly, primary data were used to identify current system issues, the benefits of system and solutions to avoid the existing issues. To collect primary data, a survey was conducted the respondents were import and export staff in a shipping line in Sri Lanka and the final sample was consist of47 employees. After collecting data, a detailed descriptive statistical analysis was carried out then appropriate statistical tests were applied to identify the patterns that address the research problem.  Accordingly, correlation analysis, independent sample t-test and Chi-square test were used. 
 
There is a significant feasibility to minimize the future challenges in shipping line operations using IT-based solutions. The sample of this study represents only import and export parties in one shipping line in Sri Lanka, and that is the major limitation of this study. The findings of this study will lead to effective implementation of IT solutions for optimizing shipping line operations. In particular, through installing a collaboration system in the organization, there is an ability to reduce time wastage and bottleneck issues that create a high-pressure environment within the organization. Working in such environment may result in mistakes in the process. If there is an ability to introduce a collaborative and integrated system, there is a possibility to minimize above issues.

Key words: Issues in shipping line operations, system features, and integrated systems