Case Study in Ship Chandling Industry

Profile Maxcorr Asia Pacific Pte Ltd caters specifically to the marine, industrial and offshore
Customer: Maxcorr Asia Pacific Pte Ltd Website: www.maxcorr.com Country: Singapore Industry: Marine - Ship Chandling Partner: Asterisk Computer (FE) Pte Ltd

industry by being a ship chandler, acting as a retail dealer for shipping supplies and equipment. Their large pool of marine hardware stores provides a variety of items such as steel wire ropes, anchor chains, synthetic polypropylene, engine spares, shackles and deck/provision bonded stores, enabling them to fulfil a vessels every requirement and needs. Their highly qualified and highly experience team of marine technical purchasers and boarding officers are more than capable of performing round-the-clock tasks to meet shipping requirements of vessel owners and managers. Time is of the utmost essence for the ship chandling industry. Increase in costing is quickly incurred every time a ship docks & stays into a port. Supplies and required items need to be immediately loaded up on board to avoid delays and overdue port stays. So responding quickly to customer requests and speeding up processes is a top priority when it comes to ship chandlers.

Costumer Profile Maxcorr Asia Pacific Pte Ltd offers ship chandling services, with a huge inventory of marine hardware stores, including but not limited for anchor chains & fittings, steel wire ropes, shackles, synthetic polypropylene & nylon ropes, engine spares, deck / provision bonded stores, providing onshore and offshore clients with an rounded services.

Software and Services Microsoft Dynamics NAVI - Marine Ship Chandling Solutions

Challenges Intricate paper-based work flow For many years, Maxxcorr has been relying on manual operations to manage their customers inquiry and their suppliers records. Vessel owners would usually fax a list of their required supplies and materials. The fax list would be scanned and placed on an official order list, manually filling out some added information. The order list would then be sent to multitudes of suppliers for a quotation request. Misplacement of orders and forgotten enquiries cannot be usually avoided, as piles and piles of fax orders are being received on a daily basis. Even the identification of the lowest price list from supplier was received and done manually. Aside from handling loads of paper works, everything has to be retyped into the system, burdening the staff with more manual processes.

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Divided information The lack of a centralized database proved to be a challenge as well. If an agent cannot respond quickly to his/her customers enquiry, no other personnel can handle the issue as relevant records are scattered into the database, making it hard for the team to quickly pull up the necessary information and respond quickly to a customers enquiry. Lack of standardization No available system for quick automation of necessary codes for compliance is available. The required IMPA (International Marine Purchasing Association) code has to be inputted manually, based on paper work records. Lack of standardization for computation of agent rebates and commissions is also a prolific issue. Data is fragmented, a round of manual processes is an everyday occurrence and time is wasted sorting through layers and layers of information and work personnel. The high quality of service of the Maxcorr team is still there but is enormously encumbered with monotonous and frustrating work processes. Solution Having an ERP system specifically tailored to the ship chandling industry was a necessary choice to be able to keep up with the demands of the customers and outpouring of supplier information. Microsoft Dynamics NAVI-Marine Solutions became the top ERP system choice and Asterisk Computer (FE) Pte Ltd became the selected vendor to implement and deploy it. Having 20 years in the business and with a committed and highlyexperienced team of consultants (averaging 10 years of experience), Asterisk Computer was the topmost trusted vendor by Maxcorr to implement a marine-industry solution.

Solution Unified data A single repository of company information has to be created first, that would easily accessible for the Maxcorr team. Data flowed seamlessly, enabling the easy importation of customer inquiries to be sent to large pool of suppliers. Instead of scanning sales orders with sometimes illegible handwritings, a systematized process of automated RFQs were sent immediately to suppliers. Monitoring and following-up of orders from every shipping department became a breeze as the information can be easily pulled up from a single database. Automated processes The calculation of mark-ups, agent rebates and even commissions became also automated, along with the request for quotations from vessel owners, via integration of various maritime e-commerce platforms using MTML (Marine Trading Markup Language), the global standard for maritime transactions. The best quotations from suppliers were quickly identified and were catalogued into the topmost list. Selecting the lowest quote and price list comparisons were made possible, allowing agents and purchasers to respond more quickly to customers inquiries. The tracking of the quantity of inventories was also available, providing a heads-up to the Maxcorr team of upcoming requests. Flexible functions Expansions can be easily done as well with platforms that provide functionalities your shipping team would greatly need,

such as Lloyds Fairplay and ShipServ. Lloyds Fairplay provides updated information on all relevant vessel information: owner, manager, operator, sister vessel, etc. ShipServ on the other hand, arranges a seamless integration of shipping process between ship owners and managers.

Product Overview MS Dynamics NAVI-Marine Solutions as a Ship Chandling Solution allows you the following functions:

Back Office Key Functionalities Benefits Today, Maxcorr enjoys a steady list of user-friendly functionalities and advancements they have never experienced before with their manual processes. Cost is greatly reduced as tedious paper-related and other repetitive tasks were completely eliminated. Time is efficiently controlled as response time to customers order is quicker and an immediate answer can be received from suppliers. Reviewing & downloading of information, making reliable inventory forecasts and anticipating ship arrivals are also possible, ensuring the efficiency of the staff. With MS Dynamics NAVI-Marine Solutions, Maxcorr can continually grow in their business, focusing consistently on revenue growth instead of incurring overhead expenses. Employees can do twice the workload as most of it are automated, speeding up responses to customer inquiries and requests. Time is greatly saved, resources are quickly allocated and expenses are noticeably reduced, all with the help of MS Dynamics NAVIMarine Solutions. Enhanced Support Features Supports FIFO and average costing method View Comprehensive Information Provides an overview of related shipping information: owners, managers, operators, ship names, etc. Vessels can be organize by owner, country and country flag. You can even efficiently identify and monitor ships that are due for port call within time period and those that are arriving to port. Automates Processes Sending of RQF to both customers and suppliers becomes automated, as well as the calculation of mark-ups, agent rebaes and commissions. It also simplifies the receiving and filing of requests from customers. Even the replenishment policy is automated.

Customer Key Functionalities Standardized Methods Set-up ISSA and IMPA industry standard cross references. Communicate via industry standard e-commerce platforms of ShipServ and MTS. Even uploading of vessel information is possible, including managers and operators, by linking to Lloyds Register Fairplay in order to create vessel cards which allow to view transactions per vessel. You can also improve efficiency and market reach with a standardized MTML (maritime specific) e-commerce interface that links customers.

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Improved Customer & Supplier Transactions Receive email quotations from ship chandlers in RFQ format. Analyze profitabilty of each customer order. You can also plan and advice delivery of goods to customers via an ETA system.

Supplier Key Functionalities Provides vendor performance of better analysis. It also enables tracking of unfulfilled delivery from suppliers. Planning of delivery of goods is also available.