Page 28: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (May 2, 2010)

FEATURE SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS ment. Today shipyards and design offices have many intel- lectual property issues with the handover of their 3D mod- els and associated data; the industry needs to find a way to ease these concerns and make full use of what we at

AVEVA refer to as the “digital ship.”

Galatas, MarineCFO The biggest challenge is the commitment to technology by the investors in and owners of marine companies. Too many marine companies still view software and technology as an expense rather than an investment. When we look at technology spend as a per- centage of budget in marine companies we find that it is not equal to what is spent in other industries. Technology available for marine companies will take a giant leap ahead when the marine industry, as a group, begins to spend more dollars on technology, which will in turn drive new devel- opment and innovation. One other area of concern is that vessel communications remains expensive and often unre- liable. As communication technology improves on those fronts, more elaborate solutions can be implemented.

How has the current world economic situation affected your business and that of your clients?

Veson, Veson Nautical It has been one of the worst markets in a long time. How fast things dropped was a bit of a surprise, even for those of us that are used to the cycli- cal nature of the business. We were fortunate, however, as a lot of our businesses (customers) are still going strong, and we had a strong pipeline of new orders

Fah, MESPAS Compared to the previous year, the order intake has slowed down. Nonetheless, MESPAS achieved an overall growth in revenue of 60% during 2009, and this year looks very promising indeed. At the present time, some of MESPAS’ existing clients are suffering badly from the economic environment.

Carbone, Stelvio The impact of the current world economic situation on shipping was discussed in great de- tail at the recent CMA conference, and it is clear that the in- dustry has felt the economic crunch. Fortunately, we have been somewhat insulated from its effects. By improving ef- ficiency, ShipDecision helps organizations do “more with less”; and that is a very powerful message in economic times like these.

Hughey, ABS NS ABS Nautical Systems has been fortunate that our client base is well balanced between the marine, government, offshore & energy and workboat sectors, as not all sectors are equally affected by the reces- sion. In the first quarter of 2010, ABS Nautical Systems signed 28 new orders with companies including MISC, BG

Group, SMIT Rebras and Seaarland Shipmanagement (Hamburg) GmbH & CO., KG.

Coppin, AVEVA Generally speaking, we see that ordinary commercial shipbuilding now commands lower prices and the orders taken are at lower margins than pre- viously. In this kind of environment, the ability to manage information efficiently, in order to drive down costs and wastage, is paramount. The need for additional oil and gas supply, however, means that Offshore, with its infrastruc- ture of rigs, FPSO, supply and support ships and so on, has been less affected.

Galatas, MarineCFO MarineCFO managed to grow through this period and we are proud of this accomplish- ment. Not surprisingly, the growth came from our web based business as companies try to find low cost ways of achieving results. Due to MarineCFO Live is web based these companies are able to get state of the art technology with no capital investment in IT infrastructure.

Hodkinson, SpecTec SpecTec has been affected by the global economic downturn but managed to stay prof- itable during a difficult 2009. So far in 2010 we are seeing a high level of interest in our products and services based on the pent-up demand from companies that put projects on hold in 2009 and also from the companies that are look- ing to upgrade or replace their current systems. Our client base has also been affected by the global economic down- turn but the majority has emerged in good shape, due in part to having SpecTec products in place to help them closely manage their operations.

Joe Galatas, President, MarineCFO

MarineCFO is a true boat to balance sheet solution, meaning that we can handle every transaction that a work boat company might have from recording vessel logs to handling commercial and compliance related data as well as full accounting and financial reporting.

Dave Coppin, Head of AVEVA NET

A combination of crew shortages, rising costs, regu- latory compliance, and evolving rules and standards have forced the shipping industry to adopt more ef- ficient practices. 28 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News

IMOS6 Bunker Management

Earlier this year at the Connecticut Mar- itime Association 2010 Shipping exhibi- tion, Veson Nautical released its IMOS6

Bunker Management. Part of Veson’s flagship Integrated Maritime Operations

System (IMOS), the module is tailored to the needs of specialists, charterers, and bunker managers, adding fleet-level visi- bility to existing vessel-level capabilities to optimize fleet-level purchase strate- gies and financial results and provide fleet-level bunker decision and process support. “After reviewing customer input and assessing current requirements, we expanded the existing features and tools to encompass fleet-level capabilities,” said John Veson, president of Veson Nau- tical. “Operational efficiencies for the en- tire fleet, not just per vessel means that specialists and bunker managers have access to crucial bunkering data en- abling them to make better informed de- cisions to negotiate better pricing. This can greatly impact the bottom line.”

IMOS6 Bunker Management makes pur- chasing processes automated, which pro- vides fleet-level purchasing data to make better decisions that affect financial per- formance. For instance, if a bunker man- ager can see quickly that three of his vessels are going into a particular port in the same time period, he can try to ne- gotiate reduced pricing in a “package deal.”

The module also enhances the vendor selection process, purchasing and stem operations; it provides evaluations and vessel history capture. Forecasting is greatly enhanced because IMOS6 Bunker

Management delivers quick, up-to-the- minute analyses, including the perform- ance of vendors and a particular vessel’s bunker history of purchases and con- sumption.

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