PortVision, a provider of business intelligence solutions for the maritime industry, has announced that it has extended its TerminalSmart offering for marine terminals to include a comprehensive Dock Management module.

The TerminalSmart Dock Management System (DMS) streamlines operations by combining job scheduling, activity logging, and high-value business intelligence, utilization, and demurrage reporting. The DMS integrates with PortVision’s existing TerminalSmart and AIS-based PortVision Advantage products to provide an end-to-end marine terminal optimization solution.

“Until now, most marine terminals used paper-based and spreadsheet-based systems in order to schedule and manage dock operations and activities,” said Dean Rosenberg, PortVision chief executive officer. “This limits productivity, causes redundant data entry, increases errors, and makes it difficult to monitor, analyze, and optimize operational efficiency. With the TerminalSmart DMS, companies can improve their understanding of resource usage, outage, and availability. The DMS can support applications, ranging from demurrage reporting and analysis to overall multi-dimensional comparative performance reporting, as well as other important tasks related to managing docks at waterborne terminals.”

Marine operations at chemical plants and refineries employ as many as half a dozen docks with multiple tanks. Each dock serves a large number of vessels that  can require 12 to 18 hours per dock call. Each dock call may unexpectedly be extended by a variety of potential delays related to staff, systems, processes and weather.

These variables are difficult to monitor and report with paper-based, spreadsheet, and legacy systems. Alternative software solutions, such as specialized systems for demurrage reporting or those based on general-purpose ERP, often still require extensive manual data entry. PortVision’s TerminalSmart DMS eliminates the time and potential for errors that are associated with these alternative systems, and enables users to dramatically improve the speed, productivity, and efficiency of their maritime dock operations in today’s increasingly competitive business environment.

To extend value of the TerminalSmart DMS, the system is fully integrated into the award-winning PortVision Advantage platform, providing enhanced visibility, reporting, and alerting of vessel movements and activities, even before they reach the dock. Once docked, the DMS takes over, maintaining the dock log, demurrage data, and other information pertinent to the statement-of-facts related to the vessel call.

Pricing and Availability
PortVision’s TerminalSmart DMS offering is available as a bundled option with the company’s PortVision service, a web-based vessel tracking, management, and analysis service that is designed to provide greater insight into vessel activities in most major ports and regions. The PortVision service leverages the only database of its kind that contains five years of data regarding the movements of commercial ships in major ports and waterways that transmit IMO and USCG-mandated AIS collision-avoidance signals.