Chevin expands to the Caribbean with Tropical Shipping

Tropical Shipping is the largest provider of cargo transportation services to The Caribbean, providing consolidation, dry goods and refrigerated services from Canada to the West Indies. Operating 18 vessels out of 15+ facilities, Tropical Shipping manages and maintains more than 20,000 pieces of equipment using Chevin’s flexible web-based fleet management information system, FleetWave®.

In an effort to improve asset utilisation and lifecycle cost visibility while improving the productivity of 100+ technicians, Tropical Shipping used the opportunity of implementing the world’s most flexible fleet management information system to completely revamp their maintenance practices from inspection methodologies to inventory management and warranty recovery. After detailed business process review of current and desired process enhancements, Chevin and Tropical worked in partnership to configure FleetWave® to support what have resulted in significant efficiencies and ongoing operational savings.

Using FleetWave’s uniquely flexible capabilities, Tropical Shipping replaced their paper intensive container inspection and work order process with wireless data collection devices for work orders, parts requisitioning, fuel management, pre-trip and in-gate inspection procedures, eliminating time consuming and error prone hand written documents. Using FleetWave’s adaptable suite of planning tools, Tropical Shipping instituted a centralized scheduling and oversight process for all regulatory inspections, certifications and preventive maintenance events, deploying a centralized dashboard to present real-time compliance to key management, department heads and maintenance personnel across the organisation. Further efficiencies have been gained by integrating FleetWave® to Tropical Shipping’s enterprise management systems including PeopleSoft, T-Link and their fuel management system, TRAK.

With FleetWave® in place, Tropical Shipping has eliminated redundant stand alone information systems and databases, while streamlining and standardizing fleet management practices across the company with a single enterprise web-based fleet management information system.