Ship managers and crew know that time is of the essence – be it when they are dry-docked or at sea. When an equipment breaks down, it needs to be repaired quickly to minimize the downtime of the entire vessel.

However, ship managers and crew today face more issues on-board, a convoluted process for escalation, and problems with knowledge management.

Compared to a decade ago, the ship crew today has to follow more regulations and handle more equipment. Coupled with the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is common for the ship crew to get overwhelmed.

Handling equipment breakdown usually involves a convoluted dance of emails, calls, and messages – often between multiple parties across multiple channels, over many days.

Complicating the situation is a ‘brain drain’ as there is a lack of a knowledge management system to capture and share the valuable knowledge in the minds of superintendents or experienced crew.

Recognising these pain points, GIANTECH has partnered with 2359 Media to develop GoTrix, a performance support collaboration tool for ship managers and crew to maintain and troubleshoot marine equipment onboard vessels – with ease, and with much less vessel downtime.

“GoTrix was founded to provide technological solutions that lend integrity, legitimacy and continuity to owners and users of assets, specifically heavy machinery and equipment,” says Mr Dilong Goh, MD of GIANTECH.

Gotrix, with its built-in dashboard, gives ship managers and crew an easy overview of the issues on every vessel. Gotrix overcomes the difficulty in capturing and sharing knowledge, enabling users to access knowledge in a timely, convenient and intelligent way.

First, GoTrix optimises organisational knowledge transfer. This increases the ship crew’s skills and knowledge, and consequently improves their performance.

Second, GoTrix captures explicit knowledge – that is, knowledge that can be readily articulated, codified, stored and accessed – found in disparate sources such as equipment manuals, images/videos of equipment, service reports, conversations in chat groups, email inboxes, various documents like memos, checklists, certificates, etc. Thereafter, GoTrix organises these into eight knowledge categories (i.e. how to install, operate, inspect, identify problems, repair, replace, overhaul / retrofit, maintain) and disseminates them into three skill sets (i.e. standard operating procedures, problem solving for unknown problems, and problem solving for known problems).

Third, GoTrix captures tacit knowledge found in the minds of experienced professionals in the organisation through its chat technology, translating tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge over time. Having multiple communication platforms streamlined into a single platform that is Gotrix enables such valuable experience to be captured.

All in all, Gotrix enhances performance support to ship managers and crew by leveraging context recognition, natural language programming, machine learning and optimisation to streamline the vast array of information needed to operate, maintain and repair vessel equipment – thereby, reducing vessel downtime.

“Improving the efficiency and efficacy with which engineers do their jobs is our ultimate goal. We value technological approaches that are implementable, adoptable and impactful. A product exists in time and its usefulness is directly related to how well it continues to perform. That is why we value iterative prototypes and close communication with industry partners. To this end, we are looking for adoption partners for GoTrix and are making GoTrix free to adopt now,” says GIANTECH’s MD Mr Dilong Goh.

Onboard your ships for free now with GoTrix, an innovative performance support solution that simplifies the work of ship managers and crew.

For more information, please visit www.gotrix.io or contact [email protected].