Proposal · Ship management
The expiry nobody saw is the detention nobody planned
A crew and certificate register whose entire value is in what it escalates, and to whom, before a Port State Control inspector finds it first.
Proposal. We have not built this one. It is written out to the same level of detail as the work we have shipped, because the useful argument is about the design, and that argument costs less before a price exists than after.
- Next.js
- Postgres
- Python
- HSQE integrations
The numbers
- 3
- Escalation steps keyed to how long the renewal actually takes, not to a fixed thirty days
- 1
- Disagreement between two sources is itself a finding, not an inconvenience
The problem
Certificate dates sit across a fleet management system, a flag portal, a class portal and a spreadsheet, and each holds a slightly different truth.
Most PSC deficiencies are documentary - an expired certificate, a record book that does not reconcile - which means they are preventable, and which means finding one during an inspection is a public and expensive failure that did not have to happen.
How we would build it
One register that reconciles the sources rather than adding a fifth truth, and which shows disagreement between them as a finding in its own right. Two systems quietly holding different expiry dates is the failure mode, not an inconvenience.
Escalation is the product. An expiry approaching goes to the superintendent, then to the fleet manager, then to the office, on a schedule keyed to how long the renewal actually takes - because a thirty-day warning on a certificate needing ninety days is worse than none.
Crew changes, visas and travel sit in the same model, since a certificate valid on paper is useless if the person holding it cannot reach the vessel before the current officer's contract expires.
Findings from inspections are tracked to closure with evidence attached, so the next inspection starts from a defensible record rather than from somebody's memory.
What it would change
Nobody can honestly claim a detention that did not happen, so this page does not. What would change is who finds out and when, which is the whole of the design.
A worked example
Most Port State Control deficiencies are documentary, which means preventable. The alerting is the product:
- A 30-day warning on a 90-day renewal
- worse than none
- Escalation path
- superintendent, fleet, office
- Sources cross-checked
- 4
- Valid on paper, holder cannot reach the vessel
- also a finding
No detentions-avoided figure appears: nobody can honestly count something that did not happen. What would change is who finds out, and when.
Want us to build this?
A 20-minute call with the two people who would build it. You tell us what you need; we tell you whether it is worth building and roughly what it costs.
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