Harbour Mastery
The Cloud-based ERP Approach to Seaport Management

“The promise of ERP systems anytime is to create an enterprise-wide, integrated and real-time business management solution,” says M. George Walters, President, Harbour Mastery® Inc. Traditionally, achieving such an ideal situation was very complex and expensive with conventional client/server architectures. However, with the rise of new technology standards, companies are continuously collaborating with ERP experts to uncover new ways to conduct their business operations more efficiently and effectively. “At Harbour Mastery, we work with maritime organizations to develop quick and effective pathways to transition or integrate their legacy systems to advanced, versatile, flexible and cost effective solutions. Furthermore, all of this must be real-time, multi-language, multi-currency, on any web enabled device anywhere for a maritime enterprise to compete effectively in the global market place,” Walters adds.

The company’s ERP solutions liberate their clients from traditional proprietary on premise systems, which increase vendor-dependency and cost. To extend its capability in doing so, the company partners with NetSuite® Inc. professional services and NetSuite partner companies worldwide. In doing so, the company adopts, configures, tailors and customizes the extensive capabilities of NetSuite®, giving clients both the solution and the support they require to go beyond the core product. “We are building everything we do in Native NetSuite® so that our business vertical maintains the integrity of NetSuite ERP Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and avoids dependencies on on-promise solutions on LANs and PCs.” Focusing solely on providing services in maritime industries management, their applications manage the enterprise operations, lines of business, and revenue streams, which are directly integrated to HR, billing, and accounting in NetSuite® thus making it a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).

Harbour Mastery’s interoperable ERP solutions—i-Seaports ERP on the NetSuite platform and i-Marinas stand-alone modules—bring sophisticated techniques for traffic, assets, security and finance management for maritime industries.“We build solutions that are structured for reliability, supportability, scalability, and extensibility (adaptable to future needs) and leverage everything ‘cloud-computing’ has to offer,” says Walters.

We build solutions that are structured for reliability, supportability, scalability, and extensibility (adaptable to future needs) and leverage everything ‘cloud-computing’ has to offer

The company’s Port Operating Systems (POS) are focused on the vessel related services including scheduling, arriving, shifting, and departing, while its Terminal Operating Systems (TOS) are designed for cargo, loading, unloading, inter-modality, and storage. The recent addition of Google earth based mapping service to these solutions has enhanced their capabilities to do real-time tracking—hovers over map icons give critical details about the vessel and its current activity. “Our solution seeks to provide all of these services from the operational side and seamlessly flow them to the billing and accounting side of the ledger,” he adds.

The costs associated with investments and maintenance of fixed assets (facilities and equipment) over against their use in delivering services that generate revenue, again tie back to foundational functionality to operate a profitable enterprise. “One of our clients just installed two new cranes at a cost of $20 million to manage cargo load and unload. I-Seaports/NetSuite manages the counts and billing income, offering quick Business Analytics of profitability,” adds Walters.

Harbour Mastery’s current partner configuration is in USA, East Coat, Gulf Coast, and Pacific Coast and they have qualified partners in Panama, Australia, and the Middle East as well. The company will continue to grow their brand recognition, and provide world-class service for seaports and marinas. “Our mission has always been to be a world-class business management solution for seaports and we intend to maintain that as a steady course,” concludes Walters.