Ship manager OSM has entered into a software partnership with Ocean Technologies Group (OTG), which will see the vessel operator implement OTG’s full range of applications for fleet, crew and learning management.
The deal was agreed following an approximately year-long OSM project to identify the best way forward for its crewing IT strategy, including a benchmarking exercise in which almost 30 off-the-shelf software systems were evaluated against the option of continuing with the development of OSM’s in-house crewing software, eCrew.
After reviewing the results, the ship management company decided to move to an external provider rather than maintain its own systems, which led to this new deal with OTG.
“We believe this will put us at the forefront of the industry. With this change, OSM will be able to focus on our core, which is technical and crew management, and thereby improve our customer and vessel performance,” said OSM’s Chief Executive Officer, Finn Amund Norbye.
“Furthermore, it is an investment in our people at sea and ashore which will provide them with much smarter and more efficient tools to help them in their day-to-day work. Finally, it will help us achieve more transparent operations through better leveraging of data.”
This shift in strategy means that OSM will simplify its IT setup by reducing the number of software systems it is connected to. The ‘TM Master’ PMS system already provided by OTG will continue to be used for fleet management, while the ‘Ocean Learning Platform’ will be newly implemented to offer access to OTG’s Seagull, Videotel, Marlins and MTS training brands.
The introduction of the COMPAS SaaS crew management system in place of the in-house crewing system will represent the biggest transition for OSM, but it notes that working with a single software provider will allow the company’s information and data to flow between applications more easily.
Operations on the vessels will be integrated with OSM offices through a unified cloud-based platform, while a customer portal will allow OSM’s clients to do their own analysis and take an active part in operational processes.
“Seafarers will be provided with a self-service platform where booking a course, participating in remote training, planning and analysing performance and updating personal information can be done from anywhere, on any device,” continued Finn Amund Norbye.
“We believe this will greatly improve our operations through an improved quality of service, more cost-efficient operations, much better tools and technologies for our people and, not least, vastly improved data analytics to better inform our decision making.”
“We are in an age in which greater transparency and governance is more important than ever before and with ESG and decarbonisation on the horizon we feel this will set us apart as a quality operator.”
