Since 1967, Korevaar Marine Group has been a family owned and operated business running out of the Port of Melbourne in Australia. Their focus is on hiring out commercial vessels for a variety of marine related projects involving construction, entertainment, film, engineering and since 1992, the delivery of bunker fuel to ships.
While their head office is in Melbourne, Korevaar Marine Group currently delivers bunker fuel in the Port of Brisbane, Australia. This causes some difficulties, as keeping a close track on vessel and equipment maintenance is important to them. The company has particularly noticed that there is a growing amount of paperwork that needs to be documented to prove their compliance with regulations.
With this in mind, Neil Pollard, Marine Operations Manager with Korevaar Marine Group, decided to start developing his own computer-based maintenance and compliance system to fit the company’s needs. However, after running into several database and compatibility issues, he soon realized the project was not going to get very far. They needed a system to do document control, track machine hours, and allowed Neil to manage operations from an office in a different city and state.
In March 2018, Helm CONNECT Maintenance went live on Korevaar Marine Group’s barge. “Installation was very straightforward”, Neil reported. The only queries that did arise were quickly resolved with Helm CONNECT via email and in just three hours they were able to set up the system and give basic training to their on-board users. Since then, “it’s been fully operational without hiccups of any sort”.
One of Korevaar Marine Group’s most significant successes with Helm CONNECT Maintenance was when they created an out of the ordinary cooling system cleaning regime in the software to handle a problem which developed on their cargo pumping system. They were able to set up the necessary routine in Helm CONNECT, share it with all personnel involved, and attach diagrams and data sheets to it. “Looking at that routine, I am able to say that we have prevented an engine failure on what is one of our most critical systems – the cargo pump on our barge. Plus I was able to monitor from Melbourne how it was doing and discuss with the engineers what we needed to do from there”.
In addition to Helm CONNECT Maintenance, Korevaar Marine Group has started using People Tracking, a module in our newly released Helm CONNECT Personnel. Neil told us, “in the last week I’ve been putting in a lot of the information on Personnel, already seeing that it will highlight for us when certifications and tickets need to be renewed and what the procedure is.” He was also pleased to see that not only does management get notified about these issues, but the person it affects will be informed too, which will increase his ability to smoothly run operations from another city.
Looking towards the future, Korevaar Marine Group believes that having Helm CONNECT will help them re-sign contracts with major customers like their oil contractor. Neil stated, “Helm CONNECT has been a major item in being able to prove to clients that we don’t just stand still. We are going down the track of finding more information and actively improving our operations”.
If you want to learn more about how Helm CONNECT Maintenance can help streamline your operations, contact us today!
