Marine Transportation Company Using Electronic Forms to Streamline Compliance.
San Diego, California, November 2, 2011 – Boatracs Inc., a leader in providing integrated satellite communications and software solutions to the maritime industry, announced today it has completed the installation of Boatracs BTForms, an electronic forms product, on multiple vessels for United Tugs, Inc., a full service marine towing contractor. The project entailed the conversion of 7 of United Tug’s paper forms into an electronic version that captains can complete with their on-board PC, providing an efficient and easy-to-use form that transmits data in a cost effective and timely manner.
“BT Forms has been an important piece of our compliance plan,” said Tom Dantin, Vice President of Operations for United Tugs. “Our goal was to reduce the manual work and paper needed to document compliance for the Responsible Carrier Program – to make the data collection as simple and automated as possible. On the vessel, BT Forms has been extremely successful in helping us gather the information needed for compliance without adding to the Captain’s workload. On the shore side, we use BT Forms to streamline our record keeping and reporting.”
BT Forms is an end-to-end software solution developed to help commercial maritime operators increase operational efficiencies by converting paper forms to electronic versions that reduce the resources required for internal reporting and record keeping for regulatory compliance. With BT Forms, the vessel and shore see the exact same information. On the vessel, BT Forms uses smart forms that verify and validate complete information before transmission, reducing manual errors at the point of data collection. The hosted BT Forms web application on the shore-side can then compile the data into a variety of reports for managers.
“United Tugs is a forward thinking company and has been a valued customer of Boatracs since 2004. With a commitment to using technology to improve operations, they have added BT Forms to our core Boatracs satellite communications offering to further enhance their access to critical operational and compliance information,” said Irwin Rodrigues, President & CEO of Boatracs. “Optimized for satellite transmission, Boatracs BT Forms is a highly flexible software solution for data communications and reporting between any vessel and its shore-side office. It is exciting to see this product being used to solve a variety of operational issues, including regulatory compliance.”