Digitalisation as it is supposed to be done

Wallem is rolling out a new suite of integrated software to manage our entire fleet. The system from BASSnet™ will allow us to utilise our data to increase transparency and deliver a better service to our customers.

Our approach was to pick a single platform built around a single database and avoid the spaghetti that results from getting multiple systems to talk to one another.

“Understanding the complexities of ship operation, compliance and the regulatory environment, I was keen to not reinvent the wheel,” says Frank Coles, Wallem Group CEO. “We have chosen to install a cloud-based solution that we can use off-the-shelf without customisation. This is how digitalisation is supposed to be done. “We are going to defy the myth that ship operation and management is somehow special or exceptional. In fact, it does not need all the disparate or heavily customised homegrown systems that seem to dominate the industry. These are fictions that have emerged due to a lack of understanding or old-fashioned beliefs, or more likely, both.”

The new system is scheduled to go live in company offices by year-end with four test ships fully linked. Customers will then be migrated to the system fleet-by-fleet over the next two years. The project is being carried out in close cooperation with our partners at BASSnet.

BASS CEO and managing director, Per Steinar Upsaker, comments: “We set out to create a streamlined experience for the full range of ship management needs, and we believe we have succeeded in this. A complete solution like BASSnet gives thorough and interconnected end-to-end coverage for the entire fleet’s business processes, prioritising safety at all levels.”

Per Steinar Upsaker, CEO, BASSnet

“Big data and machine learning are key focus areas. Most shipping companies realise they are sitting on a vast quantities of data gathered from across their fleet, but it is impossible to exploit without a unified suite of tools for systematically collecting, organising and analysing it. Without the correct tools, that data amounts to an ad-hoc assortment of random statistics, which is unmanageable especially on fleet-wide scale.”

He continued: “On the operational side, aunified solution allows shipping companies to sidestep the compatibility issues that inevitably arise when trying to sew together multiple systems from different vendors.”

Greater transparency, smarter analytics and business intelligence are critical elements in the way forward for high-performance fleet management. Or as Coles puts it: “Implementing a complete enterprise solution from BASSnet will allow us to integrate the power of big data across our business processes. We are going to walk the talk.”

BEHIND THE SCENES: As project manager, Abhijit Ghosh is overseeing the implementation of BASSnet™ implementation at Wallem. Here he gives a behind the scenes glimpse of what’s happening in the roll-out: “We’ve assembled a team of superusers, data reviewers and key end-users for each BASSnet module. They started by mapping out the operational practices needed to accomplish the system work-flow without any special customizations and meet the desired quality levels.” Once the cloud-based system is fully up and running, Wallem will be ready to provide analytics and business intelligence and integrate the power of big data with its business processes. Ghosh concludes: “The time for digitalisation is here and now.”

Abhijit Ghosh