Seamanship builds forecasting software for V.Ships http://www.seamenship.com

image: y budget8.gif
caption "The V.Ships budgeting software developed by Seamanship"

Glasgow based maritime software Seamanship has completed a contract for V.Ships, the largest shipmanager in the world, to build a budgeting system.

The system, called Budget8, takes data out of 56 different databases hosted around the world about how much V.Ships has spent on different things in the past for different vessels, enabling the company to make budget forecasts as accurately as possible.

This information is then used by both V.Ships internally and passed onto its customers. The software also monitors how well the budgets are kept.

The project took 300 man-days of development work, delivered in 4 months, at its peak having 7 software developers and a project manager working on it. "It was a very long and complex project," says Seamanship managing director Iain MacNeil.

The system is being implemented in 44 V.Ships offices and used to oversee fleet management of around 650 vessels.

It replaces legacy systems developed by Celtic Marine, which V.Ships purchased in 1998, and

Acomarit, which V.Ships bought in 2001. V.Ships wanted to restructure its system so it had one for the whole company, but would integrate the data which was used by the 3 systems.

"It was important for us to find a consultancy in which we had 110% confidence in for this project," says Stephen MacFarlane, group information systems manager with V.Ships.

"Seamanship International impressed us immensely, not only with their swift and accurate grasp of our needs, but also by the determination and dedication that they displayed.

"Seamanship worked very closely with our in-house development and business team, and we now have a world class ship management budgeting solution that meets our exacting standards."

Mr MacNeil notes that V.Ships did ask 3 British companies and 3 overseas companies if they were interested in building the software, including a number of mainstream consultancy software houses;

It chose Seamanship partially on the company's attitude and keenness to do the work. "V.Ships did believe that Seamanship had the ambition to deliver the product to them - we got the enthusiasm and passion," he says.

"That's what placed Seamanship in a strong position."

It was very much a bespoke project to V.Ships specific needs - which is also well outside Seamanship's traditional product line, which is making training software for seafarers.

"Every department in V.Ships is populating their own databases with this information," says Iain MacNeil. "The amount of information they have is massive."

"Budget8 makes optimum use of the vast amount of data that V.Ships has amassed."

V.Ships can use the tool to help shipowners make decisions about the level of management they want, knowing exactly how much each option will cost.

It can also immediately bring up management data for different vessel types V.Ships has managed in the past, to get an accurate idea how much they will cost to manage now, when making proposals for potential clients.

The data can be brought out in standard reporting formats, and also in specific report formats as requested by a number of key clients.

Seamanship is currently considering if it wishes to pursue this line of business in future, alongside its traditional training software.