Written by Andrea Giglietti, Customer Experience Manager | 04 January 2022
Headquartered in Singapore, MOL Chemical Tankers group include offices all over the world; Tokyo, Dubai, Busan, London, Copenhagen, Rotterdam, Stamford, Houston and Bogotá. With almost 50 years in the industry, the company has grown into being a global and leading specialist in marine transportation of liquid chemicals and vegetable oils.
In 2019, MOL Chemical Tankers group acquired Nordic Tankers, a Danish chemical tanker operator, significantly strengthening their service network in the Atlantic Ocean. They have also formed a capital alliance with Den Hartogh, a leading Dutch tank container company, and they are developing a tank terminal in Antwerp Port together with a local company, Sea-tank.
In the past, MOL Chemical Tankers group didn’t have many choices when it came to handling file transfer. They used email or Dualog® File Transfer to transfer smaller-sized files. For big files, however, they had to save the information to a DVD or a USB stick and then send it to their local agent for connecting to the ship. This was very costly and unproductive, explains MOL Chemical Tankers group’ IT Manager, Louis Liu:
– Our company had to devote an extremely large amount of time and energy to preparing the DVD or USB. Shipping fees and agent handling fees also had to be paid to get the physical devices delivered to the vessel. It could take months for vessels to receive the USB or DVD, and by then the information was already outdated.
Another challenge they faced was standardisation of filing systems:
– It’s difficult to get all vessels to have a standard set of file system, as every captain or crew has their own way of doing filing, says Liu. - Finding documentation, information, or software when needed can be quite difficult for the office or a new captain. With Dualog® Drive, we can set a standardisation across the whole fleet.
Read more: Why you should move from email-based file transfer to Dualog® Drive
At the MOL Chemical Tankers groups' office, everyone is using cloud-based solutions to store files and share information. They wanted to also have a cloud drive system on board their vessels to share data between office and vessels – a need that became acute during the pandemic.
– We didn’t want to send USBs or DVDs anymore. We had tried some popular shore-based cloud drive solutions such as Dropbox and OneDrive, but unfortunately, they were not designed for maritime; they just don’t work so well over a high latency satellite link. We need to have a solution that works for maritime.
In March 2020, MOL Chemical Tankers group started a Dualog® Drive trial on a few vessels. Five months later, the solution was officially rolled out across 50 vessels.
MOL Chemical Tankers group fleet departments are using Dualog® Drive’s ‘Sync’ function to maintain fleet-wide circulars, manuals, forms and training material. Their IT department uses it for IT software distribution and to maintain a standard set of user guides and procedures.
– We also use the ‘Move’ function to transfer large files such as VDR data, software updates, training videos, etc. We’re not doing much OT integration at the moment, but that’s something we’ll consider in the next phase. To fully utilize Dualog® Drive, we consider extending the usage to our other projects as well.
Dualog's primary purpose is to make maritime data transfers more manageable and more reliable. It also gets the job done faster, freeing up man-hours and boosting productivity.
To get management approval to buy Dualog® Drive, Louis Liu and his IT department demonstrated productivity gains.
Liu elaborates:
– We calculated ROI with the business department during project implementation, and the results were impressive. It turns out we save 186 man-hours per month!
In an industry with low profit margins, a cost-saving of this magnitude makes a real impact on the bottom line. Additionally, they no longer ship USB devices or DVDs to the vessels, so the cost of physical devices, shipping and agent handling has been eliminated.
– It also makes the users happy, since they don’t have to wait for months to receive the USB, adds Liu.
“We calculated ROI with the business department during project implementation, and the results were impressive. It turns out we save 186 man-hours per month!”
– Louis Liu, IT Manager
Maritime ICT is all about helping onshore staff and ship crews accomplish their tasks in a way that saves them time. Dualog's services are therefore designed to be easy to install, use, and update.
Dualog® Drive’s user-friendliness is an important aspect for MOL Chemical Tankers group:
– Most of the file replication is done by the users and ship crews. It’s easy to use, just like a Windows file server. They can simply copy and paste files into Dualog® Drive folders.
Liu concludes:
– I can highly recommend Dualog® Drive, because it has been designed for maritime use. I certainly know who to look for if there are any technical issues. Plus, I really like the “over-the-air” update feature – with just a few clicks I can update the version for the entire fleet.
To learn more about MOL Chemical Tankers group and the services the company offers, visit their website.
Andrea is our Head of Customer Success with 10+ years of experience in maritime technology and digital disruption. With a combination of academic background in IT and Innovation and a capacity to empathize with clients of all levels, Andrea has helped numerous customers to succeed in their digital transformation journey. After spending 8 years in the Arctic, working at Dualog’s HQ in Tromsø, Norway, Andrea relocated to Singapore in 2016 together with his wife and two daughters.
