If you manage a marina, you know the importance of keeping a light and enjoyable atmosphere while at the same time maintaining impeccable control of all people and vehicles that engage with the marina.
That includes closely monitoring all marina activities, compliance with health and safety regulations, and keeping meticulous records.
What’s the best way to keep all these marina management aspects under control?
Fleet management software allows fleet managers to see vehicle movement and location, driver performance, fuel consumption, and potential delays in real-time. It can also help ensure compliance with local regulations through standardized checks before any vehicle departure.
Benefits of Fleet Management Software for Marinas
One of the biggest challenges facing operations and risk managers is the rising cost of managing and maintaining your marine fleet. With decreasing budgets and other financial challenges, you are increasingly expected to do more with less and are likely trying to find ways to decrease overall spending.
While there are many different systems available on the market, another significant challenge is finding a technology that is reliable and easy to use. After all, how useful is a marine fleet efficiency solution if you can’t figure out how to use it?
While there are many other challenges that may seem insurmountable, the good news is solutions do exist.
Fleet management software can make you a hero in your marina and your community by helping you optimize your management capabilities, lower costs, and maintain your fleet’s efficiency.
Crucial Features in Fleet Management Software
Fleet management software is complex, and it encompasses many aspects of what traditionally would have been managed either by people manually or by separate software systems. Technology has come a long way, and now there is fleet management software that does everything for you in one place.
Here are some ways the right fleet management software can help you optimize your fleet’s safety and efficiency.
Regulatory Compliance
Challenges related to compliance can be major obstacles to fleet efficiency across all fleet operations. That is especially the case for smaller businesses that may not have the resources to keep up with the constantly growing list of local, state, and federal regulations. Noncompliance with U.S. Department of Transportation maritime regulations may lead to loss of operating licenses, heavy fines, or even halting operations altogether.
It can also be costly and time-consuming to comply with changing equipment requirements. This can undermine your overall fleet efficiency and may require dedicated human resources that could be more useful in other roles. So how does marine fleet management software help to minimize the costs?
Staying up to date with compliance standards requires a lot of paperwork and reporting, which can be cumbersome when done manually. Electronic Logging Devices (ELD), regulation-compliant software, and GPS systems can help your fleet ensure compliance by removing the human element from the process, which may be more susceptible to error. Reporting locations, service hours, and more can be automated, making vehicle inspection reporting much more efficient.
Ease of Use
Marina management software is painless to install and easy to use with the right service provider. After you get your team’s buy-in, implementation will involve installing fleet management applications in all vessels and training all marina employees on how to use the technology.
Regardless of the size of your fleet, you need to know how to implement fleet management software in a way that makes the transition as smooth as possible. You’ll want to use a highly regarded system from a well-respected company. The company you choose to work with will play a large role in how effective the solution will be for your team. It will improve your overall workflow and boost your workplace culture.
Integrations
Some marina fleet management technology solutions use application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow for the broad control of an expansive suite of integrated vehicle tracking features. This allows for anything, from automated scripting of everyday tasks to seamless integration into customer user interfaces alongside other business-specific tools. If your fleet works with multiple operations teams, or even private citizens, think about how you can integrate your fleet management software with programs they are already using.
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
When you decide to go with a fleet management software service provider, you’ll also need to set up a service level agreement. This agreement will be critical to ensure you and your service provider are on the same page regarding the scope of the fleet management software expectations.
Developing a service level agreement with your fleet management software service provider helps formalize the relationship between you, the service provider, and your fleet’s customers. It defines the hours of service, performance standards, and reporting processes.
Be sure to include your marina management software in any SLAs you have with your fleet’s customers. Chances are, they will be grateful.
Safety
When choosing your marina management software, safety considerations should be high on your list of considerations. The best marina management systems should include hazard identification, occurrence reporting, risk management, performance measurement, and quality assurance metrics to track the fleet’s safety and let the crew know if something is a risk.
Software safety applications should be accompanied by instructions and procedures that are clear to all stakeholders in the marina or on fleet vessels. Defined levels of authority and lines of communication for shore and shipboard personnel, together with reporting procedures in the case of accidents or non-conformities, should be facilitated by your marina management software system.
GPS Tracking
Marina management software should have Global Positioning System (GPS) accessibility. While in the water, accurate position, speed, and direction are needed to be sure that vessels reach their intended destinations safely, economically, and on time, conditions permitting. The service is used not only for vessel traffic control around busy seaways near your marina and vital navigation but also to bolster port security.
Marina management software GPS capabilities provide ports and governments with greater situational awareness of commercial vessels and their cargo and can help cut costs associated with insurance for those vessels. Marina management GPS software is embedded within the Automatic Identification System (AIS) transmission, which uses a transponder system to operate on maritime communication frequencies, so vessel identification, type, cargo, and geographic location are all communicated automatically.
Incident Management
The best fleet management software for the marine industry should have some incident management component to communicate any incidents instantaneously with the fleet manager and local law enforcement authorities.
Ship accident frequency is analyzed by distinguishing accident types and accident consequences. Ship accidents are classified into three types: collision, grounding, and contact. Any marina management software you decide to implement should be capable of immediately identifying the type of incident and communicating incident details, such as vessel or vessels involved, location, and incident type.
Analytics
Your marina fleet management software should provide you with detailed analytics, available in real-time from multiple authorized devices. Most fleet management systems provide users with performance management and reporting tools that gather, structure, and analyze vessel data to support fleet managers in making fact-based decisions and improve operations overall.
The best marine fleet management software will provide stakeholders with automatically generated reports that are easy to understand at a glance. Fleet data is structured in a secure cloud, giving those with permissions full access to valuable information in real-time as needed, either on board or on shore. Fleet analytics ensures that you always have the insights you need at your fingertips.
Customer Support
Of course, customer support is critical in marine fleet operations, and a sound management system will enable and empower your fleet operators to delight your customers by providing them with cargo security and accurate real-time information in the case of an anomaly.
Customer support is also essential when you decide which marine fleet management software to invest in. You’ll want a service provider that is available to you when you need them and can meet your particular needs. Does the provider allow you to license the software? Where is the software hosted? Can the software solution operate in a secure cloud? How will they meet your software challenges?
When considering marina management software solutions, consider asking yourself those questions. You don’t want to get stuck with a service provider that isn’t going to keep your fleet safe and secure.
How To Choose Fleet Management Software for Your Marina
With a better idea of what to consider when looking at fleet management software, let’s look at some additional factors of consideration before you go with a service provider.
Do Thorough Research
Do your research. This article should provide you with a good starting point for some questions to ask potential providers.
Remember to ask:
- How do you handle compliance issues?
- How easy is it to use?
- What kind of onboarding is available?
- What does the SLA look like?
- What safety features are included?
- What integrations are available?
- Is the GPS technology state of the art?
- What does incident management look like?
- What analytic data do they provide, and how?
- What kind of customer support do they provide for you as a client?
- What about support for your customers?
Request a Demo
Be sure to request a software demo. Pay careful attention to how the marina management software provider works with you and your team.
With SaaS, first impressions are critical, and how the provider relates to you at the beginning will set the stage for the rest of your working relationship, regardless of any SLA.
Inquire as to Training
Ask about software onboarding and training. You don’t want to find that you have invested in a seriously complex software setup that nobody on your team knows how to use, leaving you at the provider’s mercy.
Ask about training programs for new employees that will use the software, and ongoing training as regulations and software evolve and change.
Mobile Compatibility
Be sure the marina management software you go with is compatible with your team’s mobile systems. Do you operate using Android, iOS, Windows Phone OS, or Symbian?
Ensure compatibility across operating systems with any software you may consider installing with your fleet.
Scalability
Finally, as your fleet grows, you want to be sure that whatever software you decide to implement can scale when needed. The global marine vessel market is projected to grow from $170.75 billion in 2021 to $188.57 billion in 2028, at a CAGR of 1.43% in the forecast period (2021 - 2028). That means business is only growing, and you will need your marine fleet management software to scale as your business grows.
Request a demo of our fleet management and asset management software to discover how Rastrac uses GPS tracking to improve your marina’s bottom line.
We are marine fleet management software experts, and we will help you to:
- Reduce fuel usage costs,
- Improve maintenance scheduling,
- Reduce or mitigate cargo theft
- Increase driver accountability, and more.
Reach out today to learn how we can help you manage your marina more effectively.
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