Background
A vessel needs thorough route planning when moving between ports. This includes:
- Keeping track of actual voyage execution and processes
- Maintaining historical records of voyage activities
- Monitoring events that affect operational efficiency
The client in this case experienced challenges related to these essentials:
Challenges
- Difficulty in obtaining and maintaining details on issues such as position, weather and ballast
- Daily reporting was virtually impossible
- It was difficult to monitor and compare analyses
- Analysing past reports from the database was very complicated as they were fragmentary and disorganised
Solution
NETS has designed and developed an intelligent application called NETS Voyage Management (NVM) using .Net with SQL Server 2008 / SQLlite for both Web & Windows (standalone) applications to run in a LAN as well as an Internet environment, with local and centralised databases. This application was recommended to improve efficiency of voyage operations and to handle the challenges the client faced in regards to voyage planning.
Outcome
- The consumption of fuel, speed and weather forecast can be monitored and checked
- Exhaustive log files can keep track of all voyage records and daily reports of vessel position
- The history of the voyage details of all the vessels can be shared in an office-based
model, which decreases the number of disputes with the charterer on voyage details such as time at berth and consumption on board
- No human intervention is required to integrate data between the vessel and office
Provision for easy integration with third-party systems
- The application can convert updates into XML files that can in turn be zipped to make files very small (e.g. 8kb). This makes it possible to send files through low satellite bandwidths at much lower costs.
- In sum, the NVM application ensured that effective planning for a cost-effective voyage was achieved
Scope
This application can be universally implemented in any shipping/maritime organisation. It has been carefully designed and developed to handle the basic voyaging needs of vessels.
