BIMCO has developed a Maritime Reporting Model (MRM) for ship masters that reportedly reduces the administrative workload associated with port calls by 80%.
The MRM enables the master to type in the required information related to port clearance one time. This allows more time for the master to focus on managing and navigating the ship, rather than on repetitive paperwork and administrative tasks.
According to BIMCO, the prototype solution aims to standardise communication between ships and shore by making sure a unique name or tag is used by software developers. Using a global standard for tagging information, such as the ship’s name or number of crew onboard will enable software systems to make sure that the relevant information transmitted by the ship always ends up in the correct box at the receiving end. BIMCO says that in more technical terms this is a harmonisation of data models used by maritime stakeholders.
Anastasios Papagiannopoulos, BIMCO president and CEO of dry bulk shipping company Common Progress says: “Reduction of administrative burdens for the seafarers is one of my key focus areas in BIMCO, and I’m very pleased that we have delivered a successful step in this direction.”
The next challenge for the MRM project is to get the entire industry to use this standard. To do this, all shipowners and ports must require their software developers to use the standard for data modelling, particularly when identifying data elements.
“We have proved that the MRM works and is suitable for being rolled out across the shipping and ports industries. I hope that we can work with IMO to establish a successful maritime single window environment with this model at the heart of it,” says Aron F. Sørensen, BIMCO head of maritime technology and regulation.
The MRM, which was developed as part of the EU-funded EfficienSea2 program, is available via the Maritime Connectivity Platform (MCP).
