- Customer Stories
Inchcape Shipping Services
Inchcape Shipping Services is one of the world’s leading providers of port agency and marine services, operating across more than 85% of global commercial ports through its OneCape Hub and an extensive network of local partners.
+5k
Digitized SoF Documents
50%
Faster to Digitize Statement of Facts
During a port call, the agent serves as the primary on-the-ground representative, coordinating activities between the vessel, port authorities, terminals, and service providers on behalf of the principal. They are also responsible for preparing the Statement of Facts (SOF), which records the sequence and timing of events.
But this is only true if the data being collected is timely and accurate, so it can be relied upon when analyzing port turnaround, operational performance, or demurrage.
Inchcape Shipping Services supports this idea. By investing in the digitisation of its Statement of Facts (SoF) collection process, the company is now able to increase the value they provide to their customers while transforming the role of its internal teams from manual data entry to high-value analysis.
STANDARDIZING DATA CAPTURE FOR INCHCAPE'S ONECAPE HUB
Inchcape Shipping Services has a global footprint, operating one of the most extensive agency networks in the industry and working with a wide ecosystem of local partners across more than 85% of the world’s ports.
For the Inchcape team, this meant time spent reviewing Statement of Fact documents from multiple agents in different formats and locations, typing and standardizing every port-call event into the Inchcape system – the OneCape Hub.
Statement of Facts can be lengthy, detailed documents, and manually capturing every event and timestamp without error is inherently difficult. Over time, this leads to a dataset that is skewed and incomplete, offering only a partial view of the reality at the port.
The challenge then became finding a way to capture the right SOF information with a level of data quality high enough to support analytics, benchmarking and operational insight across tens of thousands of port calls managed by Inchcape.
Processing Statement of Facts at Scale
In shipping, incomplete data is often more dangerous than no data at all, because it creates the appearance of control without the confidence behind it. If only some events are captured or timestamps are inconsistent, the result is poor or zero commercial intelligence.
Seen through this lens, Inchcape’s work on SoF digitisation becomes part of a broader effort: turning port call data into something more valuable, standardized and actionable for their clients.
This led the Inchcape team to search for a way to digitize the SoF collection process, reducing the operational workload while ensuring data could be accurately captured to power reporting, benchmarking and insights, while constantly improving the quality of the service Inchcape provides to its customers.
Inchcape’s partnership with Voyager emerged from this ambition, where the first step focused on automating the digitisation of Statement of Facts documents to the OneCape Hub system. The goal was to reduce manual processing time, improve data completeness and accuracy, and accelerate the delivery of reliable data into Inchcape’s own environment.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| SoFs are uploaded into the OneCape Hub system | SoFs are sent to Voyager via the API Integration. |
| OneCape Hub teams would review the SoFs and digitize them into the Inchcape format | Voyager digitizes the SoF and sends the data back to the OneCape environment after a quick review |
| Greater exposure to human error, and slow processing times | Focus shifts from manual retyping to analysis, reporting and intelligence. |
Now, a two-way integration automatically pushes the Statement of Facts to Voyager, where port call events are parsed, digitised and returned to the Inchcape system. This shifts the role of the OneCape Hub Team from document transcription to data analysis, allowing them to focus on understanding port performance, and identifying commercial opportunities on behalf of its customers.
Instead of manually typing each event into internal systems, the Inchcape team now validates pre-structured data. Digital replicas of port call events now are quickly delivered, enabling faster laytime calculations and creating a stronger foundation for reporting, analytics and operational intelligence across the Inchcape network.
EXPANDING THE ROLE OF THE AGENT
Before, it was not uncommon for significant turnaround times to validate a single SoF. Under the new approach, the time has now come down to minutes, and the Inchcape team can now operate 50% faster.
This change has consequences beyond simple efficiency. With structured information arriving faster and with greater consistency, Inchcape can deliver operational reporting much earlier in the voyage lifecycle. Inchcape has embraced this new service to ensure customers have faster, clear visibility across all their port calls, enhancing their experience at every step.
A vessel consistently waiting outside a congested river port before pilot boarding, repeated delays caused by tug allocation at a specific terminal, or shifting operations that regularly extend berth occupancy can now be identified across multiple voyages. When these patterns are visible, the impact can be surfaced and measured.
QUANTIFYING DELAYS
In many ports, vessels may wait outside the anchorage for extended periods before receiving pilot clearance to enter the channel, or carry out operations such as bunkering while cargo is being loaded or discharged. All of these events are recorded in the Statement of Facts.
When this information is buried inside individual SoF documents, it is difficult to identify whether these events are occasional or systemic.
However once the timestamps for pilot boarding, anchoring, berthing, and many others are consistently structured across multiple voyages, patterns begin to emerge.
If vessels calling at a specific terminal or river port consistently wait longer than comparable ships, that delay can be quantified. What was previously anecdotal becomes measurable, operational insight,
Inchcape believes that agencies should run on a people-plus-platform model: combining physical presence, local coordination and commercial awareness with data that can be standardized, analysed and fed back to customers in useful ways.
Digitalisation ultimately makes port agencies more strategic and valuable to customers, and this is where the role of the modern shipping agent is evolving.
There are more than 7,000 commercial ports globally, and many lack the infrastructure or process maturity of Singapore, Rotterdam or New York. Most port calls still depend on human coordination, local knowledge, timely intervention and relationships on the ground.
But as shipping becomes more analytical and performance-driven, those who combine local operational expertise with reliable, structured data will play a more strategic role in helping customers understand delays, benchmark ports and improve vessel turnaround.
Turn your port call data into commercial intelligence.
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