Shipping Inspection a multifaceted term that defines many of the checks that are undertaken in the global maritime logistics industry. As the lifeblood of many economies around the globe, seaborne transportation of goods is both a competitive and highly regulated activity.
With different organisations, nations and regions setting different criteria for procedures and operations, it’s important to be able to stay current. Many inspection officers and maritime port officers are now moving to paperless inspection methods to manage their various procedural checks and continuous monitoring of vessels, machinery, cargo and workers. As the technology of mobile inspection evolves, it is expected that all inspection checks and audits are carried out digitally in the very near future.
What can organisations do to stay current and move with the times? One easy way to modernise and future-proof your inspection procedures is to make the shift to paperless. Digital inspection platforms today are often run off an application similar to the ones that are available on your smartphone, except that this one can provide tangible results for your safety, productivity and quality assurance checks. By using smartphones and tablets running iOS and Android, the paperless inspection sector aims to take advantage of the basic mobile device intelligence that the majority of society now possesses inherently. Inspection officers can run the inspection application on their given device to start an inspection of lifting hoists, a pre-start check of container moving machinery or simply a workplace daily safety audit. As all inspection checklists and all necessary reference material is stored on one app, the solution becomes a powerful tool to solve all shipping inspection needs. With trading ports and ships both complex and meticulously governed through necessary documentation, it is important for workers and organisations to have a commanding tool that can provide this all both quickly and simply. Vital information about cargoes, crews and vessel details can be exchanged with authorities onshore prior to arrival with the distribution of logs, checks and reports electronically. All such data can also be stored against the vessel or machinery asset, for historical reference and monitoring over time. This provides excellent potential for return on interest analysis and how effectively both the vessel and its crew are working. When new industry standards such as: ISO/TC 8 ‘Ships and marine technology’, or ISO 28005; ‘Security management systems for the supply chain – Electronic port clearance (EPC)’ are published, these can be easily and quickly integrated into the inspection processes.
