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Four offshore vessels alongside a pier, seen from above, with the quay buildings between them.

Technical and maintenance · Module 14

Ship purchasing

Requisition to receipt, on the shipowner’s own thresholds, where nobody approves their own commitment.

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The shipowner’s own policy

The approval inbox: requisitions waiting for a decision, with their value, priority and the approvals still needed, on a laptop — screen in the NoRemarks app

What it is for

The requirement, and the problem

Purchasing is where a ship management system usually stops being about ships. It becomes a procurement tool, with catalogues and approval matrices and an assumption that the buyer has a stable internet connection and a calm afternoon. None of those hold on a vessel that needs a seal by Thursday.

This module starts from the vessel’s need, keeps the approval rules the shipowner actually has, and never pretends the rules are universal. It also refuses the one thing every finance department asks for and no purchasing system should allow: a person approving a commitment they themselves made.

How it works

Three steps, on board and ashore

  1. 1

    Request from the vessel

    A requisition with the items, the reason and the urgency, raised by the officer who needs them.

  2. 2

    Approved under your rules

    Approval follows the company’s own thresholds, versioned, and nobody approves their own commitment.

  3. 3

    Ordered, then received

    The order is sent, acknowledged and revised if it has to be, then received on the quay against three quantities.

Example with demo data

What it looks like

A working picture of the module with demo data from the Ocean Pioneer — the same ship you find in the demo.

Try the demo — no account, in your browser, with the PIN 1234.

  • My tasks — what this person owes the chain today
  • New requisition, raised from the vessel’s need
RequisitionRoutine
REQ-2026-011Deck stores for the Ålesund call7 200 NOK
  1. RequestedMarte Solberg · CE
  2. ApprovedTechnical superintendent
  3. OrderedAcknowledged by supplier
  4. Received10 ordered · 9 delivered · 9 accepted

Delivery discrepancy One short on the quay — recorded, not absorbed.

In detail

What the module does

Thresholds that are yours, and versioned

How many quotes, at what amount, approved by whom — all set by the company, and every change makes a new version. An approval records the version it was judged under, so a policy change next year does not retroactively make last year’s approval wrong or right.

Nobody approves their own commitment

The rule is in the domain, tested, and cannot be configured away. It is the single most common finding in an internal audit of purchasing and it is a structural refusal here.

Answers, not invitations

A supplier’s response is a priced answer to the specific need, compared on a landed total — goods, freight, duty, currency — because the cheapest line item is regularly the most expensive delivery.

Officer-only access, in four parts

Who may see prices, who may commit, who may approve and at what scope: four separate questions with four separate answers, because a purser who may raise an order should not necessarily see the fleet’s pricing.

An exception that is documented and never backdated

Sometimes the seal has to be on the quay on Thursday and the policy cannot be followed. The product records that as a documented exception, at the time it was taken, by the person who took it — and will not let it be entered afterwards with an earlier date.

Three quantities on the quay

Ordered, delivered, accepted. They are different numbers more often than anyone expects, and a system with one field for them loses the disagreement that matters.

In the app

On the bridge, on deck and in the office

The same records on a phone in a machinery space and on a screen in the office — with no signal, and synchronised when the link returns.

  • Orders, sourcing, deliveries and suppliers, for the office
  • The policy — thresholds, versions, and who approved which
My purchasing tasks: requisitions that need me, are waiting for approval or are due to be received, on a phone — screen in the NoRemarks app

The decision

Eight statuses, one next action

Every requisition is in one of eight states and every state has exactly one next action and exactly one person who owes it. That is what the whole module is organised around, because the failure mode of purchasing software is not a missing feature — it is forty open items and nobody knowing whose move it is.

The emergency route exists and is honest about being one: it is faster, it is recorded as an exception, and it is reviewed afterwards.

Works with

One product, not nineteen

Planned maintenance

Components, criticality and jobs that fall due on a running hour or a calendar, with postponement that has to be justified.

ISM Code, clause 10

Consumption

Fuel, lube oil and fresh water as a ledger, so the balance is derived rather than typed.

Bunker delivery note

The fleet office

Every vessel on one screen, the certificate matrix across the fleet, the rotation planner and the relief pool.

ISM Code, clause 12

Put one vessel on it for two months

No card and no implementation project. A company adds its own vessel and its own people on its own afternoon — and if it is not for you, you stop, with your data exported first.

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