This solution offers shipping companies a ‘game-changing’ real-time management solution that will help them enhance their fuel procurement process, reduce fuel costs and effectively manage risk, the company claimed.
The cloud version is easy to integrate (and scale) with other standard shipping and bunkering technology management systems. It enables shipping companies to move away from making old fashioned capital expenditure investments in technology towards adopting an operational expenditure model, the company said.
ShipTECH is claimed to be a feature-rich, cost-efficient, integrated solution designed specifically to address the bunker procurement needs of modern shipping companies.
Developed to integrate easily with third party applications, it provides sophisticated analytical and reporting tools and efficient workflows and processes for key functions, including bunker procurement, claims management, trading and risk management.
Bunker procurement is central to shipping operations, as the industry spends over $180 bill in fuel costs per year, which represents up to 60% of the total cost of shipping companies’ operations. Moreover fuel price volatility has a direct impact on the total cost of a ship’s voyage and large fleets spend several billion dollars a year on bunker buying. So the opportunity to save a fraction of one per cent by implementing the ShipTECH solution can add millions of dollars directly to their bottom line, Inatech said.
In the absence of an end to end, integrated software system, shipping companies can face a number of issues, such as - vessels bunkering in ports where fuel prices are high even though alternative ports are holding lower prices; under utilisation of vessel capacity; late receipt by traders for bunker requests to procure fuel; bunkering more fuel than required for the round trip.
ShipTECH is designed to help shipping companies avoid these costly errors by providing a fully integrated cloud-based software solution capable of efficiently handling key processes and providing decision support via real-time data and analysis tools.
Jean-Herve Jenn, Inatech CEO said; “The global economic crisis has caused the shipping sector to undergo ‘change’ unlike any other it has experienced in recent years. Last year the sector reported flat revenues and this year it is going to get even worse because the market is going to remain flat at best and the pressure to reduce costs is going to increase.
“As a consequence of this the industry has been forced to consider how it can increase profits through monitoring its costs. Controlling emissions and dealing with changes in the sulphur regulations relating to fuel procurement, as well as increases in fuel costs of both low and high sulphur grades, are all responsible for the increased pressure on profitability.
“Therefore, to solve these challenges, more efficient procurement methods will become absolutely vital for shipping companies if they want to maintain profitability,” he concluded