Cirrus launches the Marine Enterprise Suite.

Cirrus Logistics announces the launch of its cloud services suite for the maritime sector, the Marine Enterprise Suite (MES). Cirrus has maintained its leadership position in berth scheduling for over 20 years with SEABERTH. The Marine Enterprise Suite complements the comprehensive and dynamic algorithms of SEABERTH by retrieving information from online sources such as vessel position and weather forecasts, and allows the master scheduler to overlay this information on the schedule, ensuring external influences do not have a detrimental effect on the planned vessel calls.

“SEABERTH, our flagship scheduling application, has focused on long-term and short-term planning horizons,” said Simon Shore, managing director of Cirrus Logistics. “MES supports the Master Scheduling function by bringing together additional data the scheduler needs to ensure the port or terminal creates workable plans that have the most up-to-date information and that these plans are available in real-time to all stakeholders.”

MES has been designed to meet the needs of the modern terminal by taking advantage of the latest technology to create an “interactive planning board” that complements the vessel schedule Gantt chart.  MES services can be easily assembled by the user and saved to different interactive planning boards. “We believe user interfaces should be highly configurable, reducing the need to navigate across multiple screens,” remarked Shore. “The MES windows manager allows users to customise the content and layout of their display so only the most relevant content is presented.”

Mobility is also important to support today’s “always available” work culture. MES cloud services allow key personnel to remain in touch with operations and to intervene or contribute to potential incidents, ensuring the smooth running of the port. This level of data access, combined with the ability to warn of potential congestion or delays, allows the terminal a more proactive approach to processing cargo.

In addition to efficiently managing the current schedule, Cirrus has applied its extensive simulation experience to provide schedulers with credible and accurate views of future scenarios. Cirrus envisages MES spanning multiple terminals and using ETD data to help validate the ETA at the next port. “Simulation functionality allows Master schedulers to run multiple scenarios when delays have the potential to adversely affect a port’s schedule, enabling them to proactively find the most effective way of minimising impact.” said Shore.

Some of the functional processes supported by MES include:

Berth allocation and schedule optimisation

Management of vessel operations including event and delay capture

Vessel technical acceptability as part of the vessel vetting process

Waiting time and demurrage claim analysis including how delays affect SLAs

Historical benchmarking of site performance via key performance indicators

Alerts and mobile services

MES supports both large and small terminals where the efficiency of the operation is critical to the onward supply chain. “We believe MES provides an important terminal differentiator for an industry already heavily invested in Terminal Operating Systems but that has yet to fully meet the needs of the shipping lines,” concluded Shore.

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