Page 54: of Maritime Logistics Professional Magazine (Jul/Aug 2017)

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SOFTWARE

Addressing Today’s Shipping Challenges with Software Solutions

Technology will prove the game changer for the shipping industry.

By Alexander Buchmann he shipping industry faces many challenges. The ent teams carry out tasks ashore and aboard, from employees growth in feet volumes at a time of global economic of shipping companies, to external agencies and crews on the

T slowdown has resulted in excess supply and falling de- high seas. A great problem here is that the feet is not integrated mand, which has had a major impact on proftability. It’s not into the internal processes of the company and most of the time only the global economic slowdown, particularly in China, lack access to a central source of data. For example, the same that is affecting shipping. Hardly any other sector requires information might get requested multiple times from the cap- such complex process management as shipping, which com- tain, which forces him to respond manually to each request.

pounds the challenges. Unless the teams are connected and can communicate on a

A major issue for many shipping companies is that they reliable basis it’s easy to see the diffculty in managing hun- have to handle a variety of tasks all carried out by different dreds, if not thousands of employees. Antiquated day-to-day departments – leading to a lack of overview about processes processes remain an ongoing challenge in shipping and are and people in charge. This isn’t surprising given several differ- reinforcing ineffcient ways of working. 54 Maritime Logistics Professional July/August 2017 | |