Since Moran Shipping Agencies applied for its first state work-force grant in 1999, the company’s business has almost tripled, said Jason Kelly, vice president and director of information.
The state grants alone aren’t responsible for the Warwick-based company’s growth, he said, but the initiatives they’ve helped pay for have made a big difference.
Seifert Systems Invests in Energy Efficiency to Strengthen Operations
For manufacturers, energy is more than just another operating expense. It plays a critical role…
Learn More
Moran Shipping manages port calls for owners of large vessels, from oil tankers to cruise ships. It handles about 5,000 port calls per year, Kelly said, for clients such as Conoco-Phillips and Royal Caribbean. (The company declined to divulge sales figures.)
Increasingly, Kelly said, “our clients are requiring more-sophisticated services that transcend the traditional scope of our industry.”
Ship owners are responding to increased global competition by controlling port-call costs, he said. But they also are being challenged to meet tougher security requirements, in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Moran Shipping provided a solution, by creating such Internet-based services as external Web sites where a client can view all of a vessel’s port data – logistical and financial – and keep track of costs incurred in port, Kelly said.
Four state grants, of $25,000 to $30,000 each, allowed the company to handle this task in-house, creating an IT department that maintains its own server, Web site and intranet system, plus external Web sites customized to meet clients’ needs, Kelly said.
As a result of its efforts, on June 22, Moran Shipping received the Governor’s Workforce Board’s first “Workforce Innovation Award.” Chairman Michael Black accepted the award on behalf of the company’s 125 employees nationwide, 35 of whom work at Moran Shipping’s headquarters, in Warwick.
Black said that, without the state grants, “to a large extent, the innovative practices within the company would not have occurred in totality.”
The new services help reduce delays, which in turn reduce port costs for clients who are feeling pressure from competitors in the global market, he said. Delays can be very costly, as port costs sometimes reach $100,000 per day.
Each port call requires coordinating all the needs of the vessel, including information-gathering and reporting, customs and security services, terminal scheduling, cargo management, ship maintenance, financial accounting and crew services.
Previous work-force grants had funded training for the four IT professionals hired by the company to implement its Internet-based client services, Kelly said.
“We create an individual Web-based extranet, customized to their needs,” he said.
The most recent grant helped fund a service that helps clients comply with new U.S. Department of Homeland Security regulations, which require that manifests and other security-sensitive data be forwarded to U.S. Customs 96 hours before the ship’s arrival at a port.
“The information has to be transmitted electronically prior to arrival,” Kelly said – otherwise, the vessel will not be allowed to port. “This program was almost fully funded by the grant.”
Kelly said Moran Shipping has handled more than 15,000 entries on behalf of ship owners. The new service differentiates it from other shipping agencies, and helps it compete with much larger multinational companies, he said.
Being smaller can also be an advantage, he noted. “Smaller companies like ours can react with more agility, more quickly,” Kelly said. “We might not have the financial resources, but we can implement customized solutions that our competitors can’t.”
In addition to winning the state award, Moran Shipping has been recognized nationally, by Microsoft Corp., which featured the company in an ad campaign for its SharePoint products.
Kelly said Moran Shipping’s IT department used SharePoint to develop its extranet portal.
