Blue Harvest Fisheries operates a fleet of 15 commercial fishing vessels in the US. They are committed to transforming commercial fishing into an industry that is defined by sustainability, governed by transparency, and bound to careful management of fishery resources. Before they purchased Helm CONNECT Maintenance, Compliance and Certifications, Blue Harvest had minimal visibility into what was going on with their whole fleet. Maintenance information was kept in a few key people’s heads and mostly done from memory. When one of these knowledge stores left the company, the flaws with that approach became clear, and they knew it was time to develop a method for recording their information.
“We were hesitant to purchase Helm CONNECT because it was something new, something completely different for us. However, using Helm CONNECT has forced us into better practices. We now have written inventory of all our moving parts. Before this was kept in a few key people’s heads. With that information readily available to all who need it, we can time preventative maintenance better and better forecast budget for repairs and maintenance. Money gets allocated, and things don’t fall between the cracks,” says Gene Bergson, Executive Vice President of Fleet and Marine Services.
For Aaron Sughrue, Helm CONNECT Coordinator, the most prominent win since starting the system has been the insights into certifications. “The system shows you when certifications are 90, 60, and 30 days to expiry. Sometimes, a certification comes up as being close to expiry that we did not realize was close to requiring renewal.”
In searching for a new system, they knew they needed something that was going to be operator friendly.
“Our captains aren’t the greatest at technology, but they were receptive to using it,” says Gene.
The adoption from the Blue Harvest captains and dedication from Gene and Aaron has resulted in significant progress using Helm CONNECT. Based on their success with three trial vessels, they have now rolled Helm CONNECT out to 15 of their vessels over the course of one year.
