Shipping Application
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Challenges
Our client is a conglomerate company and a market leader in third-party shipping services. They have been one of the major contractors of maritime and offshore services in the UK specifically operating on seismic research vessels. For the changing dynamics of the market, businesses have to move to third party ship management companies and with the outstanding outcomes, outsourcing has largely benefitted most of the businesses. The client being in a leading position cannot afford any mismanagement or inadequacy in their business and hence a tool to manage their activities is a must for their business. The information about ships/vessels, spare parts, reports and other components should be meticulously observed in a centralized platform.
With the multiple challenges of inefficient management, the track of vessels, vessel staff, vessel owners and crewing modules needs to be monitored using an intelligent desktop application. The goal was to create an intelligent desktop application which in itself constitutes Ship management and Crewing module which takes care of alerts/components/spare-parts related Data to ship/vessels, reporting module specifically devoted to reporting area of the system and Document management module which exclusively manage all the documents used in the shipping industry.
Some of the critical business challenges that led the business to develop this ship Management and Crew application:
- Offline syncing of the data: This needed to be the most considerate feature of the system as we have to maintain the data in offline mode too for the cases where there are no internet connectivity or fewer internet connectivity issues like the ocean. Syncing them to real-time data without mismatching and duplication as soon as the connection is established.
- Reporting on the number of hour’s crew has worked in the vessel and relies on the data entered by them.
- Real-time communication of data between vessel and office.
- A system should also be highly authentic and scalable to protect the client data.
Our client business needed a tool that could help them to organize and accelerate their employee efforts through scheduled updates and alarms of cutting edge applications. And also, they wanted to enhance the communication of updated data between the vessel and Office users together with reports and documents.
Expertise
Tools & Technology
- C#
- .NET
- Visual studio
- Windows server
- Microsoft Access
- Krypton Tool kit
- Reporting tool
- Crystal reports
Solution
The client aimed to develop an efficient Desktop Application for assisting Vessel staff, Vessel owner and administrator working in the office. We used .NET technology to develop this application which provides accessible, actionable document Management along with a reporting system and communication facility for Vessel owners and office users all with a single tool. TatvaSoft’s team of experienced and proficient designers and developers understood the critical requirements and developed a desktop-based solution named “Ship Management and Crewing System” that will handle all the documents and reports related to vessels along with real-time management of data between the office and the vessel.
The key highlighted features of the application are
- Offline synchronization of data when there is no internet connectivity and then a real-time update of data between office users and vessel users when connectivity gets established. This is the major feature as the crew that operates it on a vessel has to face these issues on a regular basis, this offline syncing of data leads them to access of absolute updated data and ease of communicating data between office and vessel.
- Provides maintenance facilities through this system that keeps checking on spare parts and associated details such as setting alarms for them along with jobs required for operating various components of the vessel.
- Record of components and spare parts used in the vessel and provide a platform for generating purchase orders for them along with access to product and supplier master.
- Work hour calculation for a crew working on different vessels.
- Maintaining the history of the components and spare parts that were used and jobs required for operating different vessels.
- A platform for setting diverse vessel details and different information on necessary parts of the vessel.
- Document management system that plays the role of maintaining various frequently used documents in the maritime industry along with forms that are used for specific situations.
- Maintain crew information such as crew passport, Heal information that is made compulsory by governments for entering on various ports.
- Service for reminding Admin automatically about the expiration of these mandatory documents so that they can take immediate action on that.
- Report module consists of numerous mandatory reports such as crew list, Crew Management, Ship staff evaluation, pilot card, Voyage report Engine measurement, etc. and non-mandatory reports such as Log extract, Letter of Protest, etc. that will be used in specific situations only.
- Automatic update of the software in the office as well as in the vessel provided proper internet connectivity.
- License module which handles all the details related to licensing of the software and relevant updates in the software.
Result
By establishing a stronger association with TatvaSoft, the client was able to streamline their overall operations and optimize their work methodology. TatvaSoft’s expertise in software development services in combination with its industry-driven experience has enabled the client with a top-notch ship management application. This developed application has provisioned business with access to the latest and real-time data between the office and crew on the vessel. We also helped clients to transform their legacy application and access the new one with all the information of vessels, spare parts, reports and documents. With our solution, the client was able to better manage their overall ship operations and utilize the available resources rationally.