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Description
Ulysses Hellas SA is a small software development company.
The maritime sector is lacking state of the art ICT tools. All the communication and planning of ordering related to maintenance works on board vessels, for example the delivery of ship parts and equipment, is done via emails. The volume of emails for a small shipping company may be at least 100,000 per year, with some of them having diverse threads with many different correspondents.
The “Enterprise Search Solution for Marine Procurement Process” is a R&D-project. The proposed solution shall focus on simplifying email communications related to the procurement/purchasing processes. It will also be possible to search for all documentation for a specific transaction for example. This will be a vast improvement over current processes saving time, effort, and reducing errors.
The project will result in the creation of 1 new ICT solution. Ulysses Hellas SA will also increase its revenues and competitiveness.
Summary of project results
The maritime sector is generally lacking state of the art ICT tools. Currently, all the communication and planning related to the procurement of equipment and parts related to maintenance works carried out on board vessels, is done via emails. The volume of emails for a small shipping company may exceed 100,000 per year, while several email exchanges having diverse threads and a multitude of different recipients.
Though this project. Ulysses developed a software solution to simplify the search and filtering of email communications related to the procurement/purchasing processes. Through the solution, it is possible for example to search for all documentation for a specific transaction, filter by vessel, date, supplier, etc, while respecting access rights and GDPR. This solution is a vast improvement over current processes saving time, effort, and reducing errors.
The software was designed and tested, through the collaboration with two shipping companies that provided real emails related to procurement. The project team monitored company staff executing hundreds of procurement processes on a daily basis (on a weekly basis, over 10,000 emails related to procurement of spare parts were analysed, which included more than 30,000 documents and items). Company staff also participated during testing to give feedback related to the usability and performance of the developed solution.
The project deliverable is a software capable of analysing and filtering email exchanges related to procurement in the context of the maritime sector, which is able to be installed either on premises or on the cloud.
The project is expected to contribute to increased profitability and turnover for the Project Promoter (Ulysses Hellas), as this solution will be included in the company''s service offering for the maritime sector.