2023 was a complex year for the maritime industry, marked by global upheavals and the urgent need for sustainability and technological adaptation: the effects of the war on Ukraine, and conflicts in the Middle East and Red Sea are rippling throughout the maritime supply chain, disrupting established global shipping routes and trade networks.
Besides, climate-related issues, such as severe weather conditions and rising sea levels, are posing serious threats to maritime safety and efficiency for worldwide ports, shipowners and charterers.
Seeing our customers navigate this complex scenario was pivotal in strengthening our commitment to help charterers improve operational performance, while reducing potential costs through demurrage insights – a central idea for the evolution of our platform.
This transformation is a direct result of multiple rounds of integrating user feedback into our development sprints, allowing us to make our voyage management and demurrage capabilities more aligned with the real-world needs of companies in the Oil, Gas and Chemical industries.
Voyager is on a journey to transform the maritime supply chain and redefine industry standards, integrating innovative technology, collaboration, and data-driven decision making.
With this vision in mind, here is a recap of these improvements we’ve made with Voyager over the last year, and a glimpse into what’s next on our roadmap as we continue to adapt for the challenging and dynamic year ahead:
Platform Highlights
Storage Position Module
Developed for scenarios where a charterer trades portions of a cargo to multiple customers, the Storage Position module provides complete visibility for the Charterer to know at any given point, the full extent of their inventory and project future needs.
This module functions by connecting ETRM data to an inventory database for refined products, capturing data from counterparties, grades, quantities (received, triggered, released/unreleased), pricing indexes, unit prices and premiums, and invoicing data from accounts (including SWIFT reference numbers).
Claims Manager Module
A new and centralized experience of our demurrage tool, that concentrates more information and commands in a single screen. This makes the claim building and settling process easier and quicker for analysts and operators that handle several claims at once.
Automatic Laytime Calculator
Configure your contract clauses to Voyager, so that when you parse your SoF document the laytime calculator can automatically process your laytime and demurrage claim.
This enables your team to spend more time reviewing and analyzing instead of copying and pasting information across emails and spreadsheets.
Feature Updates
Improvements to the SOF Parser
We’ve upgraded our SoF Parser machine learning model to make it faster and more accurate when processing Statement of Facts documents. Now the parser is processing documents 90% faster, and can read both typed and handwritten documents.
Workflows within the Claims Manager
Now the workflow engine is incorporated into our demurrage module, allowing for the creation of end-to-end claim building and settling using Voyager. This empowers users to customize Voyager into a wide number of use cases and replicate 100% of their demurrage process within the platform.
Parallel Operations in Laytime Calculations
Handle complex scenarios with the laytime calculator, making it easier to manage claims where there are multiple gangs working simultaneously in the same vessel.
UX Improvements
Enhanced Demurrage Statement
Designed with input from our customers, this updated version features the company’s branding, incorporates applicable laytime clauses, and arranges data in an optimized timeline format.
Added PDF Events in the Calculations Page
Now you can consult information exactly as it is in the SoF PDF document, without having to change screens when calculating laytime.
More Coming Ahead
Voyager’s journey is far from over, and we want to continue paving the way for a more efficient maritime industry. And as we sail into 2024, we remain committed to pushing the boundaries of the bulk maritime technologic landscape.
Our next development sprint will be largely focused on expanding the demurrage and voyage management capabilities to embrace complex use cases within bulk ship chartering. This will include dealing with variable demurrage rates, timebar tracking and alerts for shipowner claims and receiver/supplier rebills, vessel & cargo allocation, voyage and freight economics visibility, and more.
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