What is Navis Doing to Support SOLAS in N4 and Express?
By: / 2016-3-3 12:00 AM (Navis website Blogs)
Introduction
IMO’s Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) adopted changes to the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) convention mandating container weight verification on shippers. Beginning July 1, 2016 container weight verification will become a condition for vessel loading.
The goal of this program is to ensure all containers loading to a vessel have verified weights. This will allow terminal personnel, Chief Mates and Masters aboard vessels to assess the load plans, ensuring proper balancing of the vessel for its voyage to the next Port of Call.
What is Navis doing about SOLAS in N4 and Express?
Both products are being developed based on the same functional requirements document.We will extend the data models to include the following new fields:
- VGM Weight – This field stores the Verified Gross Mass
- VGM Verifier – This text field captures the party/entity authorizing the VGM Weight (ex. “Scale weight facility or person”)
- GrossWeightSource – This field represents the source that generated the Gross Weight of the unit (ex. “overwritten by VGM”)
N4 Update
General
Within N4 the Verified Gross Mass (VGM) Weight can be updated through a variety of sources:
- The following EDI maps will support mapping VGM Weight and VGM Verifier to the new fields in N4:
- Posting (Inbound)
- VERMAS
- Stow Plan (Baplie)
- Loadlist and DischList (Coprar)
- Activity (322, CODECO, and COARRI)
- Booking (COPARN, 301)
- BaseMapping XSD
- Extraction (Outbound)
- Baplie
- Activity (322, CODECO, and COARRI)
- Users with appropriate privileges will be able to set the value of the VGM Weight and VGM Verifier using the N4 User Interface
- Individual terminals may choose to develop customized solutions using Code Extensions and Configuration to provide the value of the VGM Weight and the VGM Verifier field. Terminals that want to generate the VGM Weight (as an example by using scales at the terminal) could use this mechanism to populate the VGM Weight field in N4. Navis Field Development may be engaged to assist with Code Extensions, as needed.
Configuration Tasks
XPS and XPS-Client use the value of the Gross Weight of the unit when making planning and decking decisions. In order to make XPS use the VGM Weight, an Auto Update Rule should be triggered on VGM Weight changes. The rule will copy the VGM Weight to the Gross Weight of the Unit and set the GrossWeightSource to ‘VGM’. This may be done by the terminal N4 admin staff.
There is potential that the Gross Weight updated by the VGM Weight may be subsequently overwritten, causing a discrepancy between the Gross Weight and VGM Weight. This may be triggered if a subsequent EDI message comes in that updates the VGM weight, or it is possible a scale weight may override a VGM Weight. If this happens, the GrossWeightSource can help determine if the value of the Gross Weight is the VGM Weight by indicating “Not VGM source” anymore. This means you may have a hold in N4 based on the VGM not being null and the gross weight data source being VGM.
N4 should be configured to place a vessel load hold on full export containers for which the GrossWeightSource is not ‘VGM’. This will result in a Vessel Stop in XPS-Client and will prevent these containers from being loaded to vessel.
Testing of this solution in your test system will be important to validate the use cases and expose any configuration questions you may have.
User Interface
For N4, the VGM Weight, VGM Verifier and GrossWeightSource will be visible in the Units view and Unit Inspector. Users will have access to Gross Weight (as they do now) and the new field representing GrossWeightSource in the XPS-Client.
Express Update
For Express clients the following messages will be modified to support VGM for customers using UNEDIFACT and/or ANSI.
- Posting (Inbound) – Baplie, COPRAR LOAD and VERMAS, 301
- Extraction (Outbound) – BAPLIE, CODECO , COARRI, and 322.
Navis is anticipating that many sites will move to the new Express 2.9_P137 branch. However, we will need to engage and work with terminals individually that do not wish to upgrade to this patch. SOLAS will be implemented and initially released thru EXP29_P137 on April 1, 2016.
*We do not have any plans to update SPARCS; the host will manage the SOLAS requirements.
Configuration Tasks
Access to VGM fields will be configurable based on the user role assignment. Vessel load holds for full export containers which do not have values for VGM fields will be controlled by a parameter setting. The details will be included in the requisite Release Notes.
User Interface
The Verified Gross Mass and Units field will be visible and updateable in identified Vessel Stow plan entry, Export Module and Container update screens. These details will be included in the requisite Release Notes.
Service Offering
In addition to the approach outlined in this letter, we would like to extend our offer of support should you require any assistance in the following areas with implementing the SOLAS – VGM regulations within your terminal:
- Configuration
- Integration
- Process mapping
- EDI mapping
- General support
Having the TOS compliant is the first phase of what is a two phase process and we can work with you to successfully leverage this regulation to the benefit of your business.
You may reach out directly to your Regional Services leadership, or Service Delivery Sponsor.
References
Below is the link to our blog for additional material and exposure to past conversations.
https://collaboration.navis.com/BlogDetails?id=90616000000M8F1AAK
The below link is a group we created on the NCC where we will host an open forum on the SOLAS topic. Please check this resource occasionally to get updates from Navis.
https://collaboration.navis.com/_ui/core/chatter/groups/GroupProfilePage?g=0F9160000000DFhCAM
Key Contacts
For any follow-on questions, please initially refer to the above links.
Alternately, please contact either:
Or your assigned Customer Sponsor
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