Challenge
Client wished to create an efficient Desktop Application for assisting Vessel staff, Vessel owner and administrator at who sits in the office. The aim was to provide Accessible, Actionable Document Management along with reporting system and communication facility for Vessel owners and office users in a single tool, out of which the prime considerations are listed below:
- Offline syncing of the data: This has been considered as the major feature of the system as we have to maintain the data in offline mode due to internet connectivity issues in the ocean and syncing them to real-time data without mismatching and duplication when connectivity is established.
- Reporting on a number of hour's crew has worked in the vessel and rely 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.
Expertise
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Technologies
ASP.Net, C#
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Database
Microsoft Access
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Reporting Tool
Crystal Reports
Solution
TatvaSoft designed and developed a desktop based solution named "Ship Management and Crewing System" that handles all the documents and reports related to vessels along with real-time management of data between office and the vessel. All the features that comes as the core requirements for any Shipping and Logistics Industry based application are encovered in the solution.
It offered following features which include:
- Offline synchronization of data when there is no internet connectivity and then real time update of data between office users and vessel user when connectivity gets established - This is the major feature as crew that operates it on vessel has to face this issues on regular basis, this offline syncing of data leads them to access absolute updated data and ease of communicating data between office and vessel.
- Maintenance system that keeps checking on spare parts and associated details such as setting alarms for them along with jobs require for operating various components of the vessel.
- Record of components and spare-parts used in the vessel and the provide platform for generating the purchase order for them along with access to product and supplier master.
- Work hour calculation for the crew working on different vessels.
- Maintaining the history of the components and spare parts that were used and jobs require for operating different vessels.
- Platform for setting diverse vessel details and different information of 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 office as well as in 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
The client drew extensive benefits by virtue of its association with TatvaSoft. It was a bit difficult task earlier for the client to manage ships also known as a vessel and related components, reports, and documents related to vessels management, yet TatvaSoft assisted them by making a desktop application using Microsoft ASP.NET technology which can address these issues. The system has provision to transmission of latest data between office and crew on the vessel along with migration from old system database to a new system. It will also be a one-stop system for crew members to operate upon components, spare parts, reports and documents for vessels.
