Geo–Replicator Case Studies.
Case Studies Related to Geo–Replicator
APL.
APL has deployed the Regs4ships Safety Management System which uses Infonic's Geo–Replicator software to deliver compression of the Safety Management System updates of up to 90% - so that they can be efficiently sent over low bandwidth satellite networks to ships allover the world.
- Client:
- APL
- Country:
- USA
- Industry:
- Shipping.
- Profile:
- APL is a 13 ship division of APL is part of NOL, the world's second largest container shipping company with over 100 ships world wide.
- Key Drivers:
- The client purchased Geo-Replicator for deployment across the fleet - to deliver compression of updates across its SharePoint® 2007 based Quality and Safety management Syestem. This would deliver improvements in health and safety compliance and control of satellite costs.
APL had been looking at proprietary SMS systems but was concerned about the need to train staff on proprietary user interfaces, the requirement for external consultancy in the system deployment and their inflexibility in the event of migration to any other system. APL were worried that they would become locked into a proprietary SMS system that it was virtually impossible to migrate away from at any point in the future. Therefore APL opted to adopt a Microsoft SharePoint based system designed by Regs4Ships Ltd from Southampton in the UK. Because this system is SharePoint based it would provide great flexibility for APL to adjust or change their SMS system in the future.
The system links to all the regulatory and statutory publications including IMO, SOLAS, FLAG. The Regs4ships system is a standard Microsoft® Word® system built in SharePoint 2007: it uses no proprietary software or user interfaces. Updates to the SMS content are sent to remote users onboard ship by either Internet, or via the email system. Either way the update process is totally automated – requiring no user action.
The Regs4ships SMS uses Infonic's Geo–Replicator software to compress the SMS updates by up to 90% so that they can be efficiently sent over low bandwidth satellite networks to ships allover the world. The system could not operate without Infonic's enormous data compression and network acceleration.
Odfjell
Odfjell shipping’s Quality and Safety Management System uses Infonic’s Geo–Replicator software to compress Adobe files by up to 90% before sending them over the satellite network.
- Client:
- Odfjell
- Country:
- Norway
- Industry:
- Shipping
- Profile:
- Odfjell is a global shipping operator with over 100 ships including oil tankers, gas carriers and bulk cargo carriers.
- Key Drivers:
- The client purchased Geo–Replicator for deployment across the fleet - to deliver two way - ship to shore and shore to ship updating of the QSMS (Quality and Safety Management System). This would deliver improvements in health and safety compliance, control of satellite costs.
The Odfjell QSMS system is Adobe based and contains Megabytes of data. The system sends pdfs over a (9.6 kbps) satellite network.
The solution (deployed by Infonic’s partner Confido AS) converts the pdfs to html and then uses Infonic Geo–Replicator to compress the HTML by over 90%. The deployment is currently 1 way publishing from shore to ship – but it will become 2 way. The license is for the full fleet of 100 ships. The software is being rolled out from ship to ship over time and is working successfully at present on those deployed.
Having purchased the software to enable to effective rollout of the QSMS, Odfjell are now using GR to also replicate news and other websites to their ships at sea – to provide crew with access to up to date news and entertainment information. These publications look like online websites to the crew but are, in fact, offline replicas powered by Geo-Replicator. The updates to the content of these sites is compressed by around 90% before being sent over satellite. This crew welfare benefit innovation is very important because crew recruitment and rentention is a major issue for any fleet operator – so every comfort helps – and crews enjoy having access to news sites.