MARITIMEREPORTER

The World’s Largest Circulation Marine Industry Publication • The Information Authority for the Global Marine Industry since 1939 • Number 11 Volume 80

M A R I N E L I N K . C O M

NOVEMBER 2018

ANDENGINEERING NEWS

Autonomous WorkboatsCloser to reality than you may think

Voices: Joseph Farrell, IIIResolve Marine’s next generation is now

Admiral Karl

SCHULTZ26th Commandant, United States Coast Guard

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4 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • NOVEMBER 2018

ISSN-0025-3448USPS-016-750No. 11 Vol. 80

Maritime Reporter/Engineering News (ISSN # 0025-3448) is published monthly (twelve issues) by Maritime Activity Reports, Inc., 118 East 25th St., New York, NY 10010-1062. Peri-odicals Postage Paid at New York, NY and additional mailing offi ces.

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Business Publications Audit of Circulation, Inc.

Member

BryantDennis is with Maritime Regulatory Consulting, and a regular contributor to Mari-time Reporter.

Fireman Howard Fireman is the Chief Digital Offi cer at the Ameri-can Bureau of Shipping (ABS)

FiremanLars Fischer is the Managing Director of the Asia Pacifi c headquarters of Softship. He is responsible for Singapore’s commercial and technical staff of 25 and for the group’s sales & marketing strategy world-wide.

Haun Eric is a NYC-based journal-ist, a specialist in all matters offshore energy. He is the Managing Editor of Offshore Engineer and OEDigital.com.

KeefeJoe Keefe is the editor of Maritime Logistics Profes-sional and MarineNews.

LundquistEdward Lundquist is a retired naval offi cer who writes on naval, maritime, defense and security issues. He is a regular contributor to Maritime Re-porter and Marine Technology Reporter.

MilneDanielle Milne graduated from Strathclyde Univer-sity with MEng Mechanical Engineering with distinction. She also broadened her train-ing with a semester abroad at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and extensive engineering intern-ships. She joined Marine Technical Limits in 2017 as Graduate Mechanical Engi-neer.

MulliganTom is Maritime Reporter’s science and technology writer based in Ireland.

OveringLisa Overing is an award-winning marine journalist and copywriter located in Aven-tura, Fla.

Paschoa Claudio Paschoa is Maritime Reporter’s correspondent in Brazil.

PospiechPeter Pospiech is Maritime Re-porter & Engineering News’ editor in Germany.

RoulakisStefanos Roulakis is an associ-ate in the Firm’s Washington, D.C., offi ce in the maritime group. He focuses his prac-tice on regulatory matters, international maritime issues, environmental work, and has taken a proactive ap-proach with his clients using

maritime compliance through audits and trainings.

WaldronJon Waldron is a partner in the Firm’s Washington, D.C., offi ce who concentrates his practice in maritime, interna-tional and environmental law, including maritime security. He served in the U.S. Coast Guard for 20 years, attain-ing the rank of commander, and was senior counsel to the marine Spill Response Corpo-ration.

KeefeBryant

Mulligan

Haun

Lundquist Paschoa

Fischer

Authors & ContributorsFireman

Overing Pospiech

Roulakis Waldron

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22 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • NOVEMBER 2018

It’s likely that you are reading this ar-ticle in your offi ce. And for most of us, that means a large, open-plan space ar-ranged with desks, monitors, break-out rooms and other features designed both to keep us productive and to facilitate communication and collaboration. We have New York City to thank for the emergence of the shared offi ce back at the turn of the last century. But it is rela-tively recently that “Bürolandschaft”, or offi ce landscaping, became popular encouraging workers to sit more organi-cally based around fl ows of communica-tion.

Ask any offi ce planner – or corporate

boss for that matter – why they favor open-plan over separate cubicles or of-fi ces. Increased collaboration is likely to top the list. When people share the same space, they are more likely to share ideas and ask for input. Even with today’s so-cial media dominance, people are social beings at heart and want to interact in-person. Data has to fl ow through a com-pany, and sharing the space facilitates that. Open-plan is also, of course, much cheaper both in terms of construction cost and because more employees can occupy less square meters, but it also delivers fl exibility. We might not know what the next offi ce trend will be, but a

large shared-space doesn’t close down the options.

Building effi cienciesIn many aspects of our family, social

and workaday lives, we have in-built ef-fi ciencies. Open-plan offi ces is just one example; so is the fact that we use our smartphones to connect to the world wide web and a variety of social sharing platforms; and that our laptop applica-tions all interconnect to allow data, im-ages and other information to be shared seamlessly and without fuss.

The question is, therefore, if this is part and parcel of our normal lives, why

are most shipping companies woefully under-integrated?

Most shipping companies will say that they have fully embraced the digital rev-olution, and that’s largely true. Almost all will be using an accounting package to manage invoicing, budgeting and bill paying. For some, this will be a simple Excel spreadsheet, but for most it is likely to be a more sophisticated made-to-measure package. Most will also be running software packages to adminis-ter a range of other commercial and op-erational functions. But the issue is one of integration. While these individual packages perform a discrete set of tasks

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About the AuthorLars Fischer is the Managing Director of the Asia Pacifi c headquarters of Soft-ship. He is responsible for Singapore’s commercial and technical staff of 25 and for the group’s sales & marketing strategy worldwide. www.softship.com

Communicate or

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perfectly well, they don’t communicate with one another.

Achieving IntegrationIn a fully integrated shipping company,

the tariff system captures all the com-plex information relating to individual customers, ports, terminals and cargoes – and this can be a hugely complicated matrix of individual prices, restrictions, discounts and incentives. When a cus-tomer requests a quotation, the quotation system should automatically look up the relevant tariff to create a bespoke and ac-curate quotation.

If the quotation turns into a sale, the system will, again, automatically create the required booking confi rmation, bills of lading, manifest and more. And once the vessel has sailed, an invoice will be automatically generated and that infor-mation will be posted to “accounts re-ceivables” via an interface.

During this process, if changes need to be made, a fully integrated system will automatically create manifest cor-rections, credit notes and invoices at the press of a button. In other words, infor-mation will fl ow seamlessly from one activity to another without the need to re-enter data. Retyping leads to errors, errors lead to delays and delays disrupt cashfl ow and cost money.

Reducing the argument to a monetary basis, it is widely understood that around 10% of global outgoing freight invoices are incorrect due to human error in trans-ferring information from one system to another. Even for a small shipping com-pany boasting a modest revenue of $100 million, that means $10 million in dis-

pute and not being paid – and a subse-quent hole in the cash-fl ow.

Finding a SolutionEvolution is probably the main culprit

for the current state of affairs. Shipping companies have adopted digitization piecemeal and so have installed individ-ual packages to perform specifi c tasks as required, or as budget became available. The resulting mix of sometimes bespoke and sometimes off-the-shelf packages has generated a maze of applications that sit alongside each other, but which don’t integrate or communicate. A huge amount of data is re-keyed between dis-connected departments within the same shipping company.

To scrap what is already in place and start afresh is a daunting and time-con-suming task. Many shipping companies are simply not prepared to take two steps backwards in order to make three or more in the right direction. Coupled with this, most IT departments are strug-gling to remain compliant with an ever-increasing raft of external reporting reg-ulations which are required just to keep the company trading. Internal integra-tion will always play second fi ddle.

But there is a solution. Modern ship-ping software is modular, meaning ship-ping companies need only select the applications they require to automate certain processes within their businesses. Each module seamlessly integrates with others to facilitate a fl ow of information across the company.

Data need only be input once, thus reducing duplication, errors and silo working. Data is then shared across the

company and with relevant business partners. This signifi cantly reduces the administrative burden and introduces effi ciencies across the business. It also frees up staff to focus on more customer-oriented tasks.

A well-thought-out software appli-cation will retrieve variable costs per shipment from a cost database and ap-ply these as estimated costs to the book-ing. Information on volumes taken from the customer at the time of booking are automatically married with this data to provide analysis and profi tability assess-ments for each consignment.

And, as the voyage progresses and actual costs become known, real-time updates allow profi tability to be moni-tored throughout the voyage. Automat-ing these processes enables a valuable amount of data to be captured, shared and reused throughout the company. It can also be analysed for performance reporting encouraging management to make smart and informed decisions.

More so, good shipping-oriented soft-ware will also manage and monitor voy-age progress and port call activities. Schedules can be monitored and updated from arrival, departure and noon-reports automatically received from the vessel. Changes caused by unforeseen events can be simulated to provide estimates of the potential impact on the overall schedule. The operator can then simulate the “what ifs” and fi nd the most appro-priate countermeasures.

But while there is a good solution to achieve full integration within shipping companies, resistance remains.

Overcoming ResistanceTwenty or more years ago, digitiza-

tion was the prerogative of the very large shipping company with deep pockets. They developed bespoke applications and recruited armies of technicians to look after them. But times have moved on and, today, it is a fairly simple pro-cess to buy specialist solutions that can be easily confi gured and customised to suit the individualities of each company and user. These packages are the means to make digitized companies into digital-ly-integrated companies. The beauty of these applications is that they are built to facilitate total integration between each of the core processes – connecting existing systems through a single over-arching, fully connected and seamlessly networked entity. So, data fl ows seam-lessly between ship operations, commer-cial, container logistics, accounting and management. Other than the obvious advantages of less data input, reduced errors and the ability to deliver height-ened customer service, these packaged solutions are available at a fraction of the price of building a bespoke system. Ef-fectively, they have levelled the IT play-ing fi eld across the entire spectrum of shipping companies. Like the open-plan offi ce, or the smartphone, or the laptop, many shipping companies are beginning to raise their heads from the day-to-day to see the advantages of having their various business functions communicate with each other. Like all good ideas, the concept is very simple, and with pack-aged software now widely available, achieving full integration is easily within reach.

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