Ship Inventory Management

Ask Google ‘how important is having good inventory management in the maritime industry’, and you’ll find a common thread running through the results – words like critical, vital, essential, key and so on.

Of course, any company that wants to keep machinery – such as an ocean-going vessel – running smoothly, safely and efficiently depends on a reliable spare parts inventory. But creating that inventory can have its challenges, particularly if the ‘parts warehouse’ is restricted to a small area of a ship travelling the oceans, with no firm date on its arrival at the next port. And those challenges are further complicated by the behaviour of the different parties involved in the supply chain…

The human factor

All the way down the line of the supply chain, different people are looking for different things.

The Ship Owner, for example, will always look to maximize the efficiency of the entire fleet management, with an attitude of ‘the more we save, the more we gain’.

Purchase Managers, on the other hand, want the very best deal at each ‘Request for Quote’ to a few suppliers – and always asks for a discount on top.

Superintendents enjoy cutting requests from vessels, pretending they know what’s needed and what’s not on board, while Chief Engineers – who are aware of that – always ask for more than they need.

And finally, Engine Officers oversee the inventory of machinery they’re following while sailing, and are accountable for the maintenance of assets and availability of the spares for both planned and unplanned maintenance.

All of this makes accurate inventory near-impossible. But in an ideal world, when it comes to critical spares like a Fuel Injection Pump, you’d know how much it costs, how many you need for each Diesel Generator, how many Diesel Generators you have on each ship and how long/how much it costs to urgently send it to the next nearest port. That’s if anyone knows where it’s stored, and if you find one, that it’s been stored properly and not damaged (more often than not, they seem to turn up in the Chief Engineer’s cabin – hence the title of this piece!).

How AMOS can help

Essentially, when it comes to inventory management you have two choices: rely on the accountability of a single person, or invest in robust software – such as AMOS – with the support of an experienced team to keep full control of your entire supply chain. And with AMOS, you’ll have a solution developed by people who know every aspect of the entire process, able to satisfy the needs of every person in that supply chain.

For instance, want to know the current stock quantity of a single spare part for the entire fleet and the interchangeability of spares between vessels? No problem (see Fig. 1).

But AMOS doesn’t stop there. It gives you a hierarchical location structure with the indication of the list of spares available, and the option to disable each single location and limit the transactions on it (Fig. 2). It allows you to trigger automatic requisitions based on stock replenishment values. And it can even forecast quantities and costs of the required spares between two dates and feed the budget for the next year (Fig.3).

It’s easy to register spares, receive materials and update the inventory using barcodes/QR codes too, using AMOS Mobile – and if you’re on the move with no access to your workstation, approving vessel requisition is simple with AMOS Web Approval (Fig. 4).

Likewise, if you’re between ports and airports, AMOS Web Inventory allows you to check the fleet for a specific spare and move it between vessels (Fig. 5); and if it’s historic data you need, the AMOS Data Surface module can tell you, for example, the most repetitive and expensive spare you’ve had to buy over the last 5 years (Fig. 6).

In conclusion

As we’ve demonstrated, using a proven asset management system like AMOS puts all the data you need at your fingertips, streamlines the entire process and keeps you up to date to make better informed decisions. It has the ability to make life easier for everyone down the supply chain, whatever their role, and keep your entire operation running smoothly.

Can it get critical spares to vessels 3 days before an unexpected failure? Not yet, but we’re working on it…