SOFTWARE S <strong>Ship</strong>dex - predicting the costs of electronic documentation <strong>Digital</strong> <strong>Ship</strong>’s second <strong>Ship</strong>dex conference in Oslo included detailed discussion about the adoption costs of electronic documentation <strong>for</strong> ships, replacing the paper manuals and drawings carried onboard. The medium term benefits of the system seem clear - but what costs and potential hurdles need to be overcome in the short term? hipdex is a standard protocol <strong>for</strong> electronic documentation <strong>for</strong> ships, launched in February 2008, which aims to improve the data available to shipping companies in their maintenance and purchasing systems. Better data has the potential to lead to better maintenance, more accurate purchasing and better communications with suppliers, leading to happier seafarers, better ship maintenance, lower costs, a potential longer lifetime of the ship and improved safety. Nobody questions the potential long term benefits of <strong>Ship</strong>dex, but over the immediate and shorter term, the path is less clear. Suppliers ask: How many shipping companies want this? How much will it cost? Will there be another standard along in a few months time, and how should we pick which one to back? Will it make it easier <strong>for</strong> my competitors to get their hands on our data? Can we just stay as we are? <strong>Ship</strong>owners ask: Should I invest in systems which can use electronic documentation? Will suppliers ever provide it? Should I try to push suppliers to provide it? Are the savings worth the ef<strong>for</strong>t? All of these questions were discussed at <strong>Digital</strong> <strong>Ship</strong>'s second <strong>Ship</strong>dex <strong>for</strong>um, held recently in Oslo, Norway. The answers are not all <strong>entire</strong>ly clear yet, but the discussion, reported below, may help you to build your own opinion about whether or not <strong>Ship</strong>dex is right <strong>for</strong> your company, and the maritime industry. The shipowners’ view After listening to the morning's proceedings, Christer Bruzelius, senior vice president of ship management with Finnlines, an operator of 36 ro-ro vessels, declared that he was "very impressed." "I see some clear benefits by standardising this," he said. "There is a clear long term benefit." "In the long run, this will lift our maintenance. We will maintain our ships better, we will get better in<strong>for</strong>mation to the crew." "But it will be a struggle," he warned. "We have to invest a lot as shipowners to be able to take this. We have [lots of different] systems <strong>for</strong> document management. But we do need standardisation." Mr Bruzelius noted that shipping companies will have to be ready to demand <strong>Ship</strong>dex documentation from their suppliers if they want to have it. "It comes down, in the end, to the customers," he said. "If they say it has to be <strong>Ship</strong>dex, suppliers have to supply it. I think shipowners can play a big role in this by pushing this, definitely." <strong>Ship</strong>owners have not had much leverage over their suppliers <strong>for</strong> the past few years, but things are changing, Mr Bruzelius emphasised. "In the last few years - we've been almost begging to engine manufacturers, please give us an engine be<strong>for</strong>e 2011. But we've come to another time now." Kari-Anne Larmerud, IT business analyst with Høegh Autoliners, pointed out that although the mid term benefits are <strong>Digital</strong> <strong>Ship</strong> December 2008 page 18 fairly clear, in the short term considerable ef<strong>for</strong>t is needed. "I think companies are a bit scared about starting this process," she said. <strong>Ship</strong>dex was initiated by shipping companies Grimaldi Naples, a company which operates 95 ro-ro, multipurpose and car carrier vessels, and Intership Navigation, a company which owns and manages 50 bulk carriers, tweendeckers and lakers, and provides crew management services to a further 70 vessels. Grimaldi's purchasing director Giancarlo Coletta estimates that the immediate savings to shipping companies Delegates at the <strong>Ship</strong>dex conference had a lot to think about - we can all see the medium and long term benefits, but how do we persuade our colleagues and partner companies to adopt this in the short term? Leading the maritime industry towards electronic documentation: Giancarlo Coletta, purchasing director, Grimaldi Naples (left) and Pawel Bury, IT manager, Intership navigation (right). of using <strong>Ship</strong>dex are Euro 27,000 a year no matter how many ships they have, saving around Euro 15,000 a year by not having to employ someone full time to manage paper documents, and saving Euro 12,000 from not needing a physical library to store them. There is also an immediate saving of the Euro 15,000 per vessel Grimaldi currently spends to create its planned maintenance database from paper documents. Less quantifiable, but potentially bigger benefits, are the cost savings from having easier to use and purchasing maintenance systems, with better data, says Mr Coletta. Mr Coletta believes that <strong>Ship</strong>dex should be a 'win-win situation <strong>for</strong> everybody'. "We wish to make the life of everybody easier," he says. "You can make the life of the vessel better." In order to get started with <strong>Ship</strong>dex, shipowners should try to put a line in their contracts with their suppliers, saying "all technical documents should be delivered in accordance with <strong>Ship</strong>dex," he said. Intership Navigation Pawel Bury, IT manager of Intership Navigation, one of the companies which founded <strong>Ship</strong>dex, said his company has a lot of headaches with manuals. "Technical manuals are sometimes poor quality, or even wrong," he said. "Making maintenance every 5000 hours is not the same as every 500 hours - and that's just a typing error." Intership is currently trying to persuade its shipyards in China to provide <strong>Ship</strong>dex documents with new vessels it is building. "I rate our chances of getting <strong>Ship</strong>dex data from China at 80 per cent," said Mr Bury.
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