Updates on the Shipdex™ Protocol

On October 7th 2008, Digital Ship held its 2nd conference for Shipdex™, a new protocol to provide ship technical information electronically, rather than on paper.

Shipdex™ was founded in 2007 by two senior managers of shipping companies, Grimaldi Naples and Intership Navigation, who thought that the industry should move beyond supplying all technical paperwork (including maintenance and repair manuals, lists of spare parts and drawings) as paper documents, which then have to be typed into company maintenance and purchasing systems. As a result, Shipdex™ formed a new international open standard for electronic ship technical information.

Companies sending delegates to the conference included Finnlines (Manager, Technical Management, superintendent), AET Tankers , (IT - AVP), Rolls Royce Marine (head of automation services, customer support specialist, naval customer information manager), Seagull (chairman), Ibruk AS (managing director), ABS Nautical Systems (Sales manager EMEA), MacGregor Bulk (technical administrator), Hoegh Autoliners (IT business analyst), Novoship UK (ICT manager), Alfa Laval Nordic (Key Account Manager/ Strategic Project Manager).

The first Shipdex™ conference took place in May 2007 in Hamburg. Several companies attended this event, including Rosemount Tank Radar, Vroon, A.P. Moller - Maersk, Atlantic Container Line, Jan De Nul n.v., d'Amico, Carnival UK, Lyngso Marine A/S, DNV Maritime Partner AS, BP Shipping Ltd, Furuno European Branch Office, Raytheon Anschuetz Gmbh, Helix ESG Deepwater Unit.

The Shipdex™ Protocol was also presented to the S1000D Community during the 2008 S1000D User Forum on October 21-23, 2008 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Budapest (Hungary). Hosted by the Air Transport Association, this year’s S1000D User Forum was combined with the ATA e- Business Forum, providing the single, most comprehensive event dedicated to information exchange standards and technologies in the global aerospace and defence industry. This Forum provided access to the industry's leading experts in solutions for digital data exchange. The technology tutorial covered core enabling technologies upon which many e-business standards are built (XML, SGML, PKI, RFID, etc.)The Forum was attended by government agencies/ministries, airlines, manufacturers, distributors, repair agencies, suppliers and solution providers.

The S1000D Council has officially reserved a seat at the s1000D Steering Committee for Shipdex. Consequently, Marco Vatteroni, SpecTec ILS manager and Shipdex™ Protocol author / technical manager, has been invited to attend the upcoming S1000D Steering Committee meetings as an observer, on behalf of the Shipdex™ Protocol. The next Steering Committee meeting will be held in Washington (DC) on 9-10-11 December at The Air Transport Association headquarters.

(www.spectec.net)