Oceaneering announced the launch of a new business, OceanSMART Cargo Logistics and Maritime Technology, which aims to eliminate waste and increase transparency within the bulk commodity cargo logistics industry.

OceanSMART will be led by Managing Director Bryan Phillips, who comes to the team with over 25 years’ experience in the marine shipping and cargo logistics industry, most recently as chief innovation officer at Inchcape Shipping Services. He is joined by another maritime industry stalwart with over 30 years’ experience, Neill Tomlin, who will serve as Vice President of Product and Business Development.

Over the past 18 months, Oceaneering’s Maritime Intelligence and Technology team worked to develop the OceanSMART offering to address serious industry challenges. The bulk commodity industry amounts to around 60% of world seaborne commodity movements. These cargoes include oil and gas, agricultural, and mineral products. The industry is one where there is little transparency, inherent conflicts of interest, tremendous waste, and misinformation. This environment results in delays, reactive decision making, unnecessary risk, excess cost, and other environmental impacts. This presents an incredible opportunity to revitalize the way the industry currently does business by more effectively using data and technology, getting away from paper-driven tasks and aging legacy applications.

OceanSMART is a combination of software as a service (SaaS) products, data science tools, and resourcing services that will provide cargo owners with real time visibility of their vessels, cargoes, and maritime assets. The service provides transparency to risk, hidden costs, inefficiency, and waste as well as provides the solutions to significantly save time and money and vastly improve decision making. 

Rod Larson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Oceaneering, said, “OceanSMART is a perfect complement to our existing maritime business and fits well into our ‘innovate and expand’ strategic objective. We are very excited about what the team has built over the last 18 months and the growth opportunities this business offers.

“When Bryan first pitched the idea to us, it was clear that he understood the problem he was trying to solve, that he had the background and skills to lead this initiative, and that the strategy would significantly change the industry.”

Bryan Phillips, Managing Director of OceanSMART, said, “Oceaneering is the perfect organization and partner for what we are undertaking. Customers are incredibly excited by what we have built as well as the roadmap ahead of us. They are excited that we have the stable ownership of a major organization like Oceaneering, whose leadership is 100% behind us.

“Ever since I started off as an 18-year-old customs clerk in the port of Durban, South Africa, it has always mystified me how little awareness there is of the amount of money being wasted by cargo owners. Fundamentally, the more inefficient a cargo movement is, the more money several parties handling this cargo make, and this is ultimately paid for by the cargo owners. That is why, three years ago, I set out to start a business that intends to rectify this issue and change the industry.”

The OceanSMART portfolio currently includes the SaaS products SMART Position and SMART Analytics. Data science advanced algorithms have been developed that can analyze port and terminal performance in near-real time with developing predictive analytics. On the resourcing side, OCEAN Demurrage and OCEAN Barge have both received significant demand signals from the market. Additionally, OceanSMART has launched the SMART AIS mobile app. Over the next 12 months, several new SaaS products, data science algorithms, and resourcing services will be released to expand the OceanSMART product line.