BIMCO, the largest of the international associations for shipowners, and the makers of database-boosting protocol Shipdex have signed a deal easing transfer of technical and logistic data for ships.
Shipdex is a collection of international business rules to be used onboard ships and provide ship supplier instruction manuals, maintenance plans, and spare parts catalogues.
Its adherents use a common source database to store, retrieve, publish and exchange technical and logistic data.
In doing so, its promoters aim to standardize the exchange and production of technical information between shipowners, shipyards, manufacturers, classification societies and application service providers.
Information in the database is distributed according to international S1000D specifications for technical publishing, already in use for civil aviation and military applications.
This data offers ship-owners a chance to eliminate or reduce the traditional high costs in retrieving technical information and loading ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and CMM (Computerised Maintenance Management) systems with contents from technical manuals, said BIMCO.
Regarding transfer of cargo data, BIMCO told PTI that while “any type of information could be exchanged based on the protocol, Shipdex is specifically aimed at production, exchange and maintenance of technical manuals for equipment in ships.”
BIMCO with the deal has also become an executive member of Shipdex steering committee.
Apart from BIMCO, the ten executive members include Grimaldi Group, Mastermind Shipmanagement, Alfa Laval Tumba, MacGregor Group, Man Diesel & Turbo, Shipdex Consulting, Yanmar Company, G&C Shipping and Rolls Royce.
Lars Robert Pedersen, Deputy Secretary General at BIMCO said: “This new venture will be of great benefit to our members and will complement BIMCO’s exciting portfolio of products and services. Shipdex fits neatly with our objective to help ease the administrative burdens for ships and masters.”
“Shipowners will be able to reduce time, administration and costs as this new system is quicker and easier to use, with zero disruption to the ship at sea.”
Shipdex Chairman, Giancarlo Coletta said: “We welcome BIMCO as an Executive Member of the Shipdex Protocol, as we work with the shipping industry to exchange electronic technical data between all parties, in a safe, reliable and effective way.”
“We are convinced that Shipdex Protocol is the best candidate to became the universal standard for the exchange of technical data.”
“Securing the support of the final user is the next step ahead for the diffusion of real electronic documentation, when this happens the industry will save money, time, paper and space because Shipdex Protocol has all the necessary features to became the universal standard for shipping industry.”
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Source: BIMCO
