3 June 2005
Meridian Marine Management Joins the ShipServ Revolution
Liverpool based ship manager Meridian Marine Management Ltd has signed up to ShipServ’s electronic Ship Supply Management (eSSM) solution.
Meridian commenced electronic trading via ShipServ’s TradeNet on 1 June. The system, which acts as a trading platform between ship owners / managers and suppliers, will operate Meridian’s fleet of 37 vessels and offshore units and include several hundred suppliers.
Meridian Marine’s Managing Director, Mr Alastair Evitt, commented, ‘At Meridian, we strive to offer the highest level of service to our owners. ShipServ will help us to achieve this goal by allowing us to work more efficiently for our diverse and growing fleet. We look forward to working with ShipServ and the TradeNet system toward this common end.’
TradeNet will move the company’s purchasing department from one of fax and e-mail based purchasing, to a fully integrated process which covers the purchase of all supplies. Electronic requisitions will be generated onboard vessels, sent to the purchasing department and then flow directly to Meridian’s suppliers as quote requests or orders. Through automation, it is estimated that the purchasing process will gain 30% efficiency with a great availability of information and no loss of control.
Liam Herbert, Meridian’s Purchasing and Systems Manager, commented, ‘This will allow a considerable improvement in productivity within our purchasing department, releasing resources to spend time on strategic procurement tasks as well as improving the quality of our work overall.’
Meridian’s suppliers will also benefit from ShipServ’s range of cutting edge supplier ecommerce tools. These are designed to be simple to understand and use, and significantly help with the supplier handling process.
Paul Ostergaard, CEO of ShipServ said: ‘We are obviously delighted to welcome another professional ship manager to the rapidly growing TradeNet community. It was particularly gratifying to learn of the comprehensive understanding of the value of ecommerce in the ship supply chain which Meridian’s management possess.’
The implementation process of ShipServ’s eSSM services was completed in just two weeks, while the technical integration to Meridian’s purchasing system was done in less than a day. ‘After a comprehensive analysis of Meridian’s purchasing process, we were able to demonstrate the benefits that ShipServ could deliver, benefits which Meridian’s management recognised.’