Maritime organisations often operate with an extensive application landscape. Financial processes run in an ERP system, maintenance is managed in a Planned Maintenance System (PMS) or Fleet Management System, and documents and operational data are spread across different applications.
This works until information needs to be exchanged between systems.
Deliveries must be linked to purchase orders. Master data must be consistent across every system. Invoices must be available to both the finance department and the technical organisation. Without proper integration, duplicate work, manual processes that are prone to errors and uncertainty about which information is actually correct quickly arise.
A single source of truth
At Alistar, we see a growing number of maritime organisations striving to establish a single, central source of information. Not by replacing every system, but by ensuring that the right data is available at the right time in the systems people use every day.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central often serves as the financial and operational heart of the organisation. At the same time, many shipping companies, ship managers and technical managers use specialised Fleet Management and Planned Maintenance solutions for maintenance, certification, procurement and asset management.
The challenge does not lie within the individual systems, but in how those systems work together.
Fleet Management and ERP complement each other
A Fleet Management System often contains crucial information about vessels, maintenance schedules, parts, certificates and technical activities. The ERP system, in turn, manages financial processes, suppliers, invoices, purchase orders and reporting.
When these two worlds are not connected, employees must enter and verify data in multiple places. This takes time and increases the risk of errors.
Integrating both systems creates a far more efficient process. Master data only needs to be maintained once, documents are immediately available where they are needed, and information flows automatically between departments. This not only improves efficiency, but also provides management, finance and technical teams with better insights.
In practice: Christiania Shipping
Christiania Shipping is a strong example of this approach. The organisation retained its existing Fleet Management System, SERTICA, while implementing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central as a future ready ERP platform. To enable both systems to work together effectively, Alistar developed an integration between Business Central and SERTICA..
This also proved to be the most challenging part of the project. Due to limited documentation and support from the PMS provider, several technical issues had to be resolved step by step. Synchronising order and delivery statuses required particular attention. In addition, Alistar developed a custom solution that automatically makes invoice documents from Business Central available within SERTICA.
Despite this technical complexity, Christiania Shipping and Alistar succeeded in establishing a stable integration that reliably exchanges information between both systems. As a result, technical and financial teams have access to the same information, eliminating duplicate data entry.
Integration is becoming more important than replacement
When pursuing digital transformation, many organisations focus on selecting new software. In practice, another question is often more important: how do all these systems work together?
A modern IT landscape increasingly consists of specialised applications, each fulfilling its own role. Success is therefore determined by the quality of the integrations between them. The greatest value is created when operational, technical and financial processes connect seamlessly.
Ultimately, digital transformation is not about systems. It is about enabling people to access reliable information faster, make better decisions and collaborate more efficiently.
