Penn Maritime
“I highly recommend Helm software and the people who make up Edoc Systems Group.” – Charles Goodrich, Penn Maritime
Penn Maritime Inc. (Penn) currently owns and operates 19 barges and 13 tugboats making it the largest U.S. coastal transporter of heated asphalt products. As well, Penn also transports fuel products from crude oil to refined jet fuel. Penn has over 1,700,000 barrels of double hull capacity and transports from the North Eastern Seaboard to the Gulf of Mexico.
Challenge: Penn’s current dispatch system was built in a pre-Windows 98 operating system. The independent contractor who originally built the system was no longer available, so the dispatch system could not operate on an upgraded Windows operating system. In effect, the dispatch system was holding back IT upgrades. Due to the inflexibility of their old system, voyages were tied to their tugs, not their barges, so when a tug replaced another tug on a voyage Penn’s dispatchers were having to manually copy and paste voyage information and logs into a new record, which had the potential to lose critical data or increase errors in the system.
Penn also had to manually report ExSTARS reporting for the IRS, which was a time consuming process.
Proposed Solution: Penn chose Edoc because it had the Helm shell, which allowed Edoc to customize a dispatch system rapidly. Edoc also had a great deal of maritime knowledge, so Penn wouldn’t have to spend time and resources teaching a software company about its industry. Edoc built a system that mimicked Penn’s original system, but added enhancements that increased efficiency, such as tying voyages to barges instead of tugs, and allowing interim billing, so Penn’s staff could start invoicing before jobs were 100% complete. Edoc also automated the ExSTARS reporting system. Eliminating the need to manually calculate figures and replicating data entry.
Outcome: Due to the implementation of interim billing, Penn’s invoice generation is quicker which has improved their cash flow.
Penn’s reporting is also much faster with Helm. An Army Corps report that used to take 45-60 minutes each time, is now produced instantly.
Remote access to Helm has eliminated the need for dispatchers to take a copy of the database with themto work in another location.
Training is improved. Before Helm, Penn users had to actually write SQL syntax to produce queries. Now they use Helm simple search screens and pivot reporting.
"The development process was detailed and interactive. The rollout went smoothly. We were responded to promptly when upgrades and improvements were needed. I highly recommend the Helm software and the people that make up Edoc Systems Group." - Charles Goodrich