adding new drydocking and crew management modules to the system. When Canada's Canfornav � a shipping company with 30 vessels operating from the Great Lakes to multiple international ports � needed to simplify its processes, it turned to ShipDecision, designed by Stelvio, Inc., which created a virtual command center to securely link each business partner involved in the cargo process. Developed in consultation with ship owners, operators and P&I Clubs, ShipDecision is a web-based system that is designed to integrate all of the critical operations and documents to manage cargo voyages. To ensure that its products are targeted to the end-user's needs, the company "develops softwarefor the sake of business, not for the sake of IT," said Albert Carbone, president and CEO, Stelvio.
In this case, Stelvio's engineers worked directly with Canfornav employees to gain an understanding of their business processes, challenges and needs, listening to the full spectrum of needs of staff in the Operations, Chartering, and Administrative departments. ShipDecision is also targeted to ship brokers, designed to eliminate the need for brokers to search manually through the thousands of incoming daily emails. The Vessel Position feature of the system examines each incoming message and automatically extracts the critical vessel information such as the name, ownership and tonnage of the vessel; its region and position; and its open date range. Through a unique algorithm, the system also `learns' to adapt to various formats of information, so that it can extract the relevant data regardless of the format in which it is written. The mespas5 screenshot Cargo Order feature of the system makes it easier for brokers to search for cargo orders by lay-can date range; cargo type and quantity; zone and port; and by latest
date. "Quickly matching the right ship to the right cargo, in the most cost effective manner, is a critical action in the maritime shipping industry," said Carbone. "The feedback we have had from the brokering community is that the Broker Module will make a real difference in day-to-day productivity," he said. Teledata Marine Solutions (TMS) recently launched ShipManager 7.0, which is designed to provide a platform for Predictive Analysis and Decision Support, and seeks to addresses the operational needs of Commercial Managers, Technical Managers and Ship Staff. "This product is constructed around four building blocks, namely Technical, Commercial, F&A and Decision Support. The ShipManager 7.0 application work flows are designed to deliver business intelligence to maritime enterprises," said Himanshu Joshi, President � Marine Products, Teledata Marine Solutions. A unique ship operator can select and use chosen business processes from different modules including Procurement, Crewing, Chartering, Accounting and so on. This approach ensures flexibility of software use with roles and responsibili-
"We are like a bank," said Peter F�h, managing director, MESPAS, "in that we don't own the money (information), we manage it."
ties. Besides featuring alerts, notifications and dashboards as integral parts of the product, ShipManager 7.0's interfaces also provide marine managers and ship's crew a direct access to a large number of critical reports in offices and on ships. Multi Service Corporation -- a global provider of billing and payment systems -- administers an Internet-based fuel procurement and transaction management solution for the commercial shipping and government marine industries. The Altivis interface is an adaptation of an open market solution developed for U.S. government spot buys. The system connects bunker buyers with a worldwide network of suppliers and maintains a complete transaction trail for contract and spot purchases. As a credit and transaction service provider, Multi Service extends lines of credit to marine organizations, pays the bunker
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June 2009
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