P&O Ferries commissions Thinking Virtual database for Fleet Regulations - Lloyd's Ship Manager

P&O Ferries has overhauled its document management system for fleet regulations, reducing its onboard and shore-based files and folders with an electronic database developed by UK solutions provider Thinking Virtual.

According to Mike Ridley, fleet director of P&O Ferries, the system will be deployed to "save [us] a huge amount of paperwork and free up valuable internal resources" by allowing P&O Ferries personnel to "source the most up-to-date information on any given aspect of fleet reg ulations", when linked up to each ship's individual Intranet.

For Thinking Virtual, which is in its fourth year, this contract represents its first foray into the maritime sector. Chairman Nigel Shore told LSM: "Our main experience has been within the legal sector, but we can apply the same kind of techniques to the shipping sector, and we see the P&O Fleet as being a very good outlet for the system. One of the key advantages of the database is that it constitutes an inexpensive solution and requires the minimum of work to set up and run. No training is required to access and use the system."

Mr Shore also claimed that when a demonstration CD was presented to P&O Ferries, it took just five minutes for the ferry company's officers and crew to familiarlse themselves with the system's key functions.

The Thinking Virtual system has so far been applied to the eight vessels within P&O Ferries' shortsea Dover-Calais fleet, while the remaining 12 ferries operating within the North Sea and Western Channel zones from Portsmouth and Hull will be provided with the system at a later date, a spokesman for P&O Ferries told LSM.

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