Shipping companies have a huge opportunity to transform how they manage their fleets and crews by using cloud technology, say experts in digital shipmanagement tools.
Hanseaticsoft chief executive Alexander Buchmann, whose Hamburg-based company received a "significant investment" from classification society Lloyd’s Register, argues that cloud technology can help drive down costs and improve efficiencies.
“The benefits of using cloud technology are numerous,” he says, listing ease of data access and exchange, availability of information regardless of time or location, and reducing data silos as among the advantages.
Buchmann says: “Searching and forwarding data can take up to 25% of the daily working hours of an employee at a shipping company.”
Assuming such a company has 100 employees, about €1.5m ($1.69m) can be saved each year through better data availability, he says.
“As data is centrally stored in the cloud, all you need to access relevant information is an internet connection, enabling you to react faster. Using the cloud, data can be transmitted from vessels simply and easily.”
Cloud in action
It all sounds too good to be true, but a range of shipmanagers and shipowners — among them are NSC Group, Atlantic Lloyd, Carsten Rehder and United Arab Shipping Co — use Hanseaticsoft’s Cloud Fleet Manager.
Other shipmanagement cloud software is available such as IB USA’s InfoSHIP EVO, which has been adopted by Cruise Management International and several other major cruiseship operators.
Hamburg-based PT-Shipmanagement is a German cloud-based manager that claims to have cut traditional costs and runs a very lean organisation.
As data is centrally stored in the cloud, all you need to access relevant information is an internet connection, enabling you to react faster. Using the cloud, data can be transmitted from vessels simply and easily
It was founded by Patrick Toll who spent several years working for MAN Diesel before moving into management with Komrowski and, later, Rickmers Shipmanagement.
Toll launched PT-Shipmanagement in October 2015 and initially managed 12 multipurpose vessels. These were sold by the banks soon after, but the experience gave valuable systems insight to the fledgling manager, Toll says.
Today, the company is virtually paperless to the extent that Toll suggests a fixed brick-and-mortar office is no longer a necessity for managing ships. It claims to be the first fully digital shipmanager in Germany.
"We can work from anywhere,” says Toll, whose company uses Hanseaticsoft’s cloud and web-based software. “We have access to all the ships’ data, emails, everything. It is all in the cloud.
"Communication between us and the vessels is fully digital, which means I have no servers in my office. I just have computers we can use from anywhere.”
Onboard the ships there is no need for servers, just a computer connected to the internet or a communication system. Reporting forms are filled in electronically.
Young appeal
Toll says the technology, which lessens workload at sea and frees up crews to focus on normal vessel operations, has appealed to its officers and masters who are typically young — some captains are only about 30 years old.
PT-Shipmanagement is still small with a fleet of just five vessels — containerships of about 2,000 teu managed for an unidentified private equity fund. Bridgefort Maritime is given as partner and owner.
Meanwhile, Carl Schou, president of Wilhelmsen Ship Management, says his company’s clients are “very forward leaning” and keen to try different digital strategies.
“They always want to try new systems, new ways of doing things, so it really pushes us and this benefits the rest of our portfolio of vessels,” he says. Digital technology leads to efficiencies and financial savings, he adds.
Wilhelmsen Ship Management has developed a commodity planner so its cruiseships can see the cost of the most-used items and facilities in ports they are scheduled to visit, including waste water and rubbish disposal. Owners have already made big savings, it is claimed.
Sensor technology means “we are 24/7 online with everything happening onboard and able to catch things before they develop into something bigger”.
Schou says its main client, Viking Ocean Cruises, is keen to exploit digital solutions — “everything that can improve the operations”.
