Royal Vopak is a Dutch independent multinational company that stores and handles products ranging from chemicals, oil, gases, and LNG to biofuels and vegoils in three end markets: energy, manufacturing, and food & agriculture. It operates 80 terminals with a storage capacity of more than 27 million cbm in 32 countries. They connect the supply of and demand for vital products and resources around the world.

This use case focuses on Vopak Europoort which is a large-scale independent oil hub terminal in the Port of Rotterdam.

Vopak procures products from various suppliers across Europe and stores them at their terminal. Numerous ships arrive at their ports daily. The entire ISGOTT process involves parts 1 to 9 divided into pre-arrival, arrival, and repetitive checks performed by the loading master at the terminal and the ship’s captain at the tanker.

Multiple challenges were faced by the professionals involved in the ISGOTT activities. Maintaining and printing piles of paper checklists was not easy.

Apart from this, the entire procedure of manual form filling was quite time-consuming. Sometimes the product discharging took weeks, and the operator in charge of each shift had to fill in the same information again and again, which caused delays.

There were miscommunications during the shift change, while sometimes there were errors. Another obstacle was preserving all the old records. Important data was lost in the bundles of paper while in storage.

At the time of safety audits, searching through the whole stockpile of checklists to show relevant information to the auditor was a task.

Vopak wanted an easy-to-use, cost-effective solution to overcome these challenges.

They turned to Smartflow, which provided them with a fully digitized ISGOTT process connecting the loading master, ship captain, operations team, logistics department, and Vopak’s backend system.

The solution implemented in July 2021 was co-developed with Vopak and improved based on their feedback.

Smartflow standardized their loading and discharging operations ensuring the smooth arrival of oil tankers at the Europoort Terminal Rotterdam,  as well as other terminals from Asia and the USA, reducing ship/shore documentation while focusing on the ultimate goal of safety and environmental protection.

At the Europoort terminal, 70 ships arrive per month, and each of these ships has to go through ISGOTT checks. After implementing Smartflow, the total time taken by the loading master to fill in the ISGOTT checklists was reduced from 45 minutes to 10 minutes, thereby decreasing the vessel turnaround time.

With Smartflow, no human contact was required while performing all the ISGOTT tasks increasing everyone's safety at the tanker and the terminal during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The form has prefilled data which not only saved time but automatically notified everyone involved if there was a mistake. The entire team could track it in real-time, reducing all possibilities of any kind of errors or miscommunication. In addition, there was zero printing cost and no paper waste.

After implementation, the ISGOTT checklists have fewer errors and no misinterpretation of the written text.

The entire time to fill in the ISGOTT checklist has been reduced from 45 minutes to 10 minutes, decreasing the vessel turnaround time and thereby increasing efficiency.

The terminal can check vessel ETAs or delays in real-time, monitor on-time arrival, and reduce discharge delays.

All the old records are stored digitally, reducing paper waste and printing costs. The terminal gets better insights into previous data and uses it for further analysis.

The entire terminal now has zero paper wastage while performing ISGOTT digitally.

Vopak was able to build its digital infrastructure with the global rollout of the Smartflow Platform across various terminals, and they will continue to incorporate it further. Our SaaS solution helped them transform their frontline operations and speed up their work which made them more efficient.

Smartflow not only supported them with standardizing their ISGOTT checklists but also other digital shipping forms, truck handling self-arrival processes, and digital operator rounds, and will continue with more use cases in the future.

The tanker and the terminal can perform arrival, pre-arrival, and repetitive checks without any human interaction.

Customized ISGOTT solution as per the terminal rules and Covid-19 regulations.

Integrated with Vopak's Customer Order System with the help of RPA.

Digitalizing all the handshakes between various parties involved, such as terminals, vessels, agencies, shipping companies, and the authorities, is an important strategic goal for companies, and the introduction of version 6 of the International Safety Guide for Tankers and terminals (ISGOTT 6) provides a well-grounded reason to accelerate this

Smartflow is a SaaS software platform that digitalizes inspection checklists and standardizes workflows. The cloud-based solution equips companies with a collaborative tool that connects field workers with office representatives to create a fully comprehensive information transfer and data reporting.