10 Benefits of Maritime Mobile Apps for Ship Management
10 Benefits of Maritime Mobile Apps for Ship Management
In the dynamic maritime industry, seafarers often face relentless schedules and challenging conditions. At the same time, regulatory compliance is essential to ensure a safe environment onboard.
Fortunately, the advent of mobile apps has ushered in a new era of efficiency, convenience, and simplicity, addressing these challenges.
When designed to cater specifically to the unique needs of this industry (such as BASSnet’s mobile apps), they can offer benefits that take fleet management to a higher level.
What are the 10 benefits of mobile apps for ship management?
- Intuitive Products Designed for Seafarers with Busy Schedules
Mobile apps for the maritime industry are tailor-made for seafarers with hectic routines. They feature user-friendly interfaces and intuitive design, ensuring that even those with limited technical expertise can navigate the apps well and use them effectively.
Why is an intuitive design so important? For one, it can significantly reduce the learning curve. Crew and office staff can harness the full potential of these apps quickly.
Also, the maritime industry usually involves complex processes. By using intuitive mobile apps, crew and office staff can significantly cut down on time taken to perform tasks, simply with the click of a button, and even when on the move.
- A Likeable Product that Encourages Active Usage
User engagement is crucial for the success of any technology. The best mobile apps for ship management cannot be merely functional; they must also be designed to be engaging and user-friendly.
By choosing mobile apps with a user-centric approach that fosters a positive user experience, maritime companies will encourage seafarers to actively use the app in their daily operations.
This is beneficial to increase uptake especially for crew self-service. BASS, for example, designed the BASSnet Crew Portal mobile app as a powerful tool for crew to view and maintain data on personal information, training, schedules, travel arrangements, claims, and compliance. With given access rights, crew can submit changes and gain approval from the office.
BASS also invested heavily in making the app design user-friendly to enable even better crew self-service.
- Understandable and Efficient Workflows
The maritime industry involves multiple interconnected areas from ship maintenance to inventory management, procurement and operations, where data is shared and collaboration is essential.
One of the standout benefits of mobile apps in the maritime sector is their ability to streamline and simplify complex workflows. These apps can offer seamless integration of tasks, from data entry to report generation, resulting in greater operational efficiency and accuracy.
BASSnet’s Control of Work app, for example, simplifies the permit to work process by:
- Facilitating the Permit to Work process for the crew
- Office staff gain a fleetwide overview of planned and ongoing operations
- Crew can carry a digital permit to any worksite and avoid unnecessary paper printouts
- Senior officers at sea can have a clear overview of the planned or ongoing operations
- Users can use e-signatures, on-the-go approval, push notifications and more to simplify the Permit to Work process and reporting.
Having a mobile app that mimics desktop systems or offers rich functionality alone is not enough. This is why BASSnet’s mobile apps, for example, are also designed with straightforward process flows that enhance efficiency for the users.
- Less User Training Required
The modern maritime industry is highly demanding across multiple facets. Often, time is of the essence. In the effort to adopt digital systems for cost and efficiency gains, it’s important to factor in the time and costs that will be taken to train users when adopting these complex digital systems.
Although the right learning and development approach can minimise costs while meeting business goals, it is helpful to look at the benefits of adopting digital solutions that require less user training.
Maritime mobile apps are an ideal example. These tools reduce the burden of extensive training by virtue of their user-friendly interfaces. Processes are usually simplified and cater to users on the move. These qualities can easily translate to reduced training costs and quicker onboarding of new staff.
- Boosts Efficiency with Less Time and Clicks
Efficiency is of supreme importance in the maritime world. Time is money. In addition, safety and compliance can also be affected by how long it takes to perform tasks or identify concerns.
In the fast-paced maritime environment worldwide, fewer clicks and less manual data entry mean faster decision-making and quicker responses to critical situations.
Mobile apps minimize the time and effort required to perform various tasks and enable stakeholders to monitor or track the situation onboard at the click of a button.
For example, it is highly efficient to be able to perform site audits, inspections and findings’ reporting using a mobile app. The BASSnet Safety & Quality app for example enables vessel and the office – including Officers onboard, Superintendents, Vessel Managers and HSEQ Auditors – to reap benefits from the app’s:
- ability to quickly create findings
- structured audit and inspection flow
- meaningfully structured report layout and printout options
- media upload, sharing and mark-up
- rich and user-friendly features
- intuitive process flow
- ease of task execution, flexibility and efficiency
- insightful data visualisation of audit or inspection results
You can learn more about the benefits of the BASSnet Safety & Quality app here.
- Convenience to Access and Approve Data On-The-Go
“One of the primary advantages of using mobile apps also is that you gain access to critical fleet data on the move. This empowers seafarers and ship managers with up-to-date information, allowing them to make informed decisions swiftly.” (Boosting Efficiency: How Mobile Apps Improve Ship-Shore Work Processes)
– Johannes Hapke, VP of Product Management (Innovation and HSEQ) at BASS Software
Mobile apps provide users with the convenience of accessing and approving data wherever they are, even when they are miles away from the office or vessel.
This accessibility ensures that vital information is at their fingertips 24/7. Important business data and analytics can be easily accessed and leveraged to proactively prevent damage or enhance processes. Executives can react nimbly to urgent approvals, even when on the move.
The cost, safety, and efficiency benefits are significant when factoring how ship owners and managers can make strong business gains from the time savings provided by mobile apps.
7. Ability to Update Report Instantly at the Work Site
Reporting is a fundamental aspect of maritime operations. Mobile apps empower seafarers to report incidents, maintenance issues, and other crucial data instantly from the work site.
This timely reporting enables accurate records to be created, and facilitates vital information sharing.
Vessels can also stay on top of their inventory management with ease. The BASSnet Inventory app, for example, enables users to digitally view and update stock details and perform selected procurement processes on the go. Users can then synchronise inventory updates with the BASSnet database (when online) as the app is integrated with the system’s BASSnet Materials module for complete inventory management.
BASSnet’s Inventory app can help users to stay up-to-date with material inventory data at all times and alert them if material shortages require replenishing. (Learn more)
- Access to Guidance Information at the Work Site
Having access to guidance information at the work site can be a game-changer for seafarers. From best practices and common hazards to counter measures, crew can stay informed and aware of actions that they may need to take to stay safe in dangerous circumstances at sea.
Mobile apps are a great tool to access guidance on a variety of maritime areas. The apps can feature built-in resources and reference materials that provide immediate assistance when needed, contributing to safer and more informed decision-making. This is made possible, for example, with the BASSnet Control of Work app.
- Fully Digitalizing Processes
The maritime industry is no longer tethered to paper-based processes. Mobile apps play a pivotal role in digitalizing and automating tasks, reducing paperwork, and ensuring data accuracy.
The transition to a digital ecosystem can enhance the ease and completeness of data collection, security and compliance.
This is also why it’s important to choose maritime mobile apps that are integrated into a larger digital ecosystem such as the BASSnet Fleet Management suite in order to fully digitalize your maritime operations.
- No Duplication of Work Reporting and Reactive Reporting
Depending on the software provider selected, maritime mobile apps can eliminate the redundancy of manual data entry and reporting.
Using the right solution, data entered once can be seamlessly integrated into various reports and records, eliminating the risk of data duplication. This data can then be analysed holistically across multiple maritime areas.
In addition, apps can give users the ability to react swiftly to emerging issues, enhancing safety and regulatory compliance on the go.
Mobile Apps: Invaluable Tools for Maritime Excellence
Mobile apps have emerged as invaluable tools in the maritime industry, simplifying operations, enhancing mobility, and boosting overall efficiency.
Their intuitive design, coupled with the ability to provide real-time access to critical information, has made them indispensable for C-suite executives and other maritime stakeholders.
As technology continues to advance, embracing mobile apps for ship management is not just an option; it’s a necessity for staying competitive and ensuring the safety and efficiency of maritime operations.
Learn more about BASSnet’s extensive range of mobile apps for fleet safety and quality, permits to work, inventory management, and crew self-service.