A newly minted integration between maritime software supplier OrbitMI and data-driven communication platform Sedna is intended to ease the time-consuming process of handling voyage information in multiple emails by creating “intelligent connected workflows”, with Stena Bulk being the first to adopt the innovative solution.
While there is increasing adoption of digital applications in shipping, current ways of working mean vital vessel data remains siloed in disconnected software platforms, pioneering to internal communication challenges that lessen the value of this data.
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According to Sedna Founder and CEO Bill Dobie, “Many shipping companies are wrestling with the issue of these siloed tech stacks as there is no central hub that ties these systems together to ensure that everyone across the organisation can access the same real-time actionable data.”
This, he says, “creates an increasingly chaotic work environment with cluttered business processes” that entails constantly switching between different systems with multiple log-ins, cut-and-paste and double entry, leading to manual errors, slower decision-making, lower operational performance and, ultimately, reduced profitability for businesses.
Single operational ecosystem
To address this challenge, Sedna’s advanced email platform has now been integrated with OrbitMI’s voyage management system under their existing partnership, launched in May 2021, to create an operational ecosystem that enables different teams to easily collaborate on the same information at the click of a button.
Sedna’s email platform integrated with OrbitMI’s management system under existing partnership
This allows vessel owners, operators and chartering teams to remain constantly updated on information such as voyage status, position and deviation alerts, as well as ETA, speed and fuel consumption, from within a single unified platform through a seamless flow of data so they can more quickly and easily manage global voyages.
“This integration enables vessel managers to access critical information for quick actionable insights all in one place from a centralised platform,” Dobie says. “Through creating a single source of truth, we can create greater supply chain visibility, aid collaboration and transparency across maritime and improve business performance,” he adds.
Transformative potential
Stena Bulk, the world’s pioneering tanker shipping company, has already realised voyage efficiency benefits after trialling the ground-breaking application, which is now available for other shipping companies as a plug-and-play API solution to customers of both platforms. It can also be accessed via a mobile app or web browser by all employees in the organisation.
Stena Bulk’s General Manager for Commercial Operations, Phil Thompson, says: “The integration between Orbit and Sedna has the potential to transform the way we work. For instance, clicking on a vessel name in Sedna's email-based interface opens the visualisation of that same vessel in Orbit's rich dashboard and map interface. That saves us time. Every minute not doing administrative tasks is a minute we can focus on our main job, and that's optimising the operational efficiency of our vessels.”
Accelerating decision-making
Through intelligent connected workflows, we can deliver information and insights to users"
Furthermore, the integration eliminates the issue of data blindness that results from different teams working on asymmetric information, which can lead to guesswork in decision-making, and also reduces business risk both in terms of missed commercial opportunities and system security, according to OrbitMI CEO Ali Riaz.
“Through intelligent connected workflows, we can deliver information and insights to any type of user in the context of their day-to-day tasks, allowing them to make decisions quickly,” Riaz says. “Connected workflows allow employees to focus on more important activities, such as problem-solving, forecasting and interacting with clients, which also boosts job satisfaction and productivity. Such integrations through supplier collaboration within our open API architecture are contributing to enhanced value creation for the end-user and improving operational efficiency to reduce the environmental impact of shipping.”
Get-together in the maritime calendar
Both Sedna and OrbitMI are at this year’s Nor-Shipping event in Oslo, a get-together in the maritime calendar.
The collaboration epitomises this year’s theme of #PartnerShips, recognising the benefits of shipping companies working together to meet some of maritime’s most pressing challenges and goals.