eLogs: Revolutionising the Ship’s Logbook

BSM plans to initialise an electronic logbook for all of its more than 450 fully managed vessels. Like the implementation of eRBooks, a digital environmental record book, this marks another huge digitalisation effort for the fleet.

Digital Innovation Issue - July 2022

Published on 27 Jul 2022

For centuries, logbooks were handwritten. BSM is preparing the roll out of digital logbooks throughout the entire fleet.

Logbooks have been an essential part of maritime documentation for centuries. Whether it be an old explorer ship, a small sailing boat or a 20,000 TEU container vessel, all have logbooks on board. The maritime books are the ship’s diary, recording important navigational information, weather data, engine monitoring parameters, port calls and other operational activities. Traditionally, logbooks are handwritten – until now! With software module eLogs, BSM is taking the next step in the digitalisation of its ship management.

eLogs is used for the simple recording of logbook data in a digital format. The software enables BSM to standardise vessel logbook entries, and make them more transparent and available to teams ashore for further analyses. With the planned roll out of eLogs on all its more than 450 full-managed vessels BSM is showcasing its leading position as a digital third-party ship manager.

eLogs stands for Electronic Logbook, and it is a new module of the integrated ship management software smartPAL developed by MariApps, the wholly owned IT subsidiary of the Schulte Group. It is part of a unique digital portfolio the Schulte Group is providing to the maritime industry.

“With our new eLogs module we secure a high quality of logbook data through standardised entries. It will ease the workload on the bridge, thus giving officers more valuable time for other duties on board. At the same time data that has never before been available ashore is regularly mirrored to office-based teams to further improve transparency towards the owner, following regulations, voyage performance, efficiency as well as other use cases. This is a huge step in digitalisation because it is the data that drive our success in shipping,” says Nicholas Rich, Group Technical Manager – Systems at BSM.

How does eLogs work?

The eLogs module is a Web-based application which contains an engine and a deck logbook. This enables both departments on board a vessel to make their logs digital. It reduces the administrative workload for the crew and minimises the error rate through various automatic control and plausibility mechanisms. Therefore, deviations from vessel-specific limitations can be quickly identified and appropriate countermeasures can be initiated to prevent faulty logbook entries.

“The logbook is likely the most frequent used tool on a bridge. To make the experience even better for the crew eLogs is connected to other smartPAL modules like eRBooks, for example. Hence the connection, some events trigger automated logs which further improve the crew resource management on the bridge and engine. With this we ensure that data between the PAL modules is exchanged and therefore we further drive data availability and transparency,” adds Rich.

The pilot phase for eLogs had already been started in June on 14 vessels. BSM plans to finish the pilot phase in the third quarter this year, and a release for the module in Q4. The roll out on BSM’s full-managed fleet will begin in the first quarter of 2023.

BSM officer using the electronic logbook on the bridge.

Nick Rich

Group Technical Manager Systems at BSM

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