Most mid-sized barge operators have had at least some experience with scaling their business, but barge operators growing from small to mid-size will not necessarily face the same struggles as those scaling to larger operations. The bigger the fleet, the more freight, routes, staff, and billing tasks there are to keep track of. At some point, the sheer amount of data and tasks are too much for outdated systems–or systems designed for small fleets–to handle.
The good news is that there are ways to mitigate growing pains by either planning ahead or pinpointing problems caused by growth. Addressing these issues with the tools now available to the barge industry can help barge businesses get back on track for successful scaling.
Planning Ahead for a Growing Barge Business
When it comes to any business operations, planning ahead is always ideal. Scaling a barge business generally involves determining the degree of growth you want to achieve and setting up a strategy to achieve it. But, how do you create that strategy?
Growing a mid-sized barge business in today’s world will almost always involve analyzing the data your business has gathered thus far to determine what is working and what isn’t.
These insights are used to determine the changes needed to increase freight contracts, handle more cargo, and hire additional crew, while maintaining efficiency throughout your operations. Figuring out all of this before scaling a barge business can save operators money, time, and a lot of frustration.
Once you understand your business’s needs, you’ll more than likely find that you’ll need to incorporate technologies, like automation, into your barge operations. Recent research shows that more and more inland marine managers are achieving growth and optimization by implementing technologies, such as automation and digitization, that facilitate everything from monitoring locks and navigation channels to improving fuel efficiency.
However, growth can also happen unexpectedly, or operators may not have had a chance to properly assess potentially helpful technologies before increasing volume. This can result in hiccups in some cases. Or, in other cases, serious problems may pile up after going unnoticed for a long period of time, and this can result in a more difficult situation to get out of. Fortunately, there are still ways to update systems and catch up after growth outpaces manual or outdated systems.
The Telltale Signs That It’s Time to Modernize Your Barge Operations
Although barge operators that are dealing with their growth outpacing their system capabilities are most likely already feeling overwhelmed, there are some additional indicators that their business is in need of modernization. These include:
- Low Dispatch Visibility – When different crews, ports, or boat captains use disconnected dispatching systems that don’t easily communicate with each other, it is difficult to see what’s moving where in real time. If they are still using spreadsheets for scheduling or other logistics, mix-ups between versions can arise and cause confusion throughout the fleet.
- Data Silos Across the Fleet – Data silos occur when data from individual vessels or contracts is not accessible by the rest of the fleet. This may not sound that bad, but data fragmentation creates errors in scheduling, billing, and reporting when those who need the data resort to estimates, or when one vessel or team must wait for another to send over information.
- Inability to Keep Up with Regulatory and Billing Tasks – With increasing numbers of vessels and customers comes increasing paperwork and tasks. If you don’t have an efficient way to keep up with these tasks and paperwork, they can pile up quickly — eating up employee time that could be spent elsewhere. The increase in work and necessary vessel maintenance can even eat into profits, potentially resulting in a barge business’s expenses increasing faster than its profits.
- Disgruntled Customers – If delays are becoming more common in your fleet due to poor dispatch management, paperwork errors, and data silos, there’s a good chance that customers will become frustrated. This may be doubly true if staff who are busy putting out fires have little time to answer their emails or inquiries. This is an especially bad look to newly acquired customers, meaning the growth your barge business experienced may only be temporary.
The Technologies Helping Barge Operators Scale Smarter
So how do the big players in the barge industry operate so efficiently? And how do they continue growing with (apparent) ease? While these companies may have business savvy and years of experience, they also utilize new tech when and where they can. Here are some of the technologies that can help a mid-size barge operation scale up:
Automated Systems
Automation doesn’t mean your entire fleet is running autonomously, but it does mean activities like midstreaming a barge, invoicing customers, transferring containers at ports, or sending dispatch information can be automated. This is all done through software integrated into your fleet’s systems, with valuable oversight from the crew.
For example, BargeOps Onboard can automate information exchange, transmitting and logging orders and updates in real-time. This frees up captains, crews, and office teams to focus on activities that better leverage their expertise as your fleet grows, rather than on data entry. Information is then available to anyone who needs it — right when they need it, mitigating delays.
Digital Logs
The barge industry, along with every other industry, is now heavily digitized, making data entry faster and, in many cases, automatic. Aside from modernizing to catch up with competitors, digitizing logs has benefits, like:
- Storing important data for data analytics that can be used to monitor systems and acquire insights about inefficiencies
- Keeping all information in one system, avoiding issues with version control and email
- Customer information can be accessed quickly and easily when they need it, or even sent automatically
Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance allows for proactive analysis of the ship’s equipment and machinery using sensors and monitoring systems. Unlike maintenance checks, which are prone to human error, predictive maintenance can often detect equipment issues earlier — before they become serious and costly.
The data collected is used to determine when components will need corrective maintenance, allowing maintenance to be performed earlier when necessary, but also preventing unnecessary planned maintenance. Ultimately, this can help reduce delays due to equipment failures, save money on more costly repairs or replacements, and utilize crew more effectively.
Scale Smarter with BargeOps Custom Tools for Barging Operations
Whatever growing pains your barge company is feeling, BargeOps has a solution. With a wide variety of modules focused on automating barge operations, digitizing logs, and using data analytics, your fleet can get back on course to scaling successfully. Our data analytics module can then help your barge business use its own data to find the best ways to streamline barge operations for continued growth.
Contact us today for a demo.
