In the first of an occasional series of interviews with industry luminaries, we sit down with Naz Miah from SpecTec Cruise. Naz is the driving force behind the evolution of the company’s AMOS asset management system, and here we talk to him about his role, AMOS technology and future trends in the cruise industry.
How long have you been with SpecTec, Naz?
I’ve been with the Group for six years now. I actually started my career as a business analyst/consultant and gradually moved into product management – I’ve a good deal of experience in implementing digital transformation, having done it across several organizations for over 15 years. That’s given me a wide range of expertise, including business analysis, strategy formulation and leading, defining and managing product management and organizational change.
Tell us about your role and what you like about it.
In a nutshell, I’m here to make sure we deliver the right technology solution specifically for the cruise market. It’s a sizeable challenge, but I love the fact that I’m in an environment with global development teams bringing their rich cultures and different attitudes together to create solutions that deliver what our customers need.
The AMOS system is far and away the leading asset management system in our industry. What are your short- and medium-term development focuses?
AMOS has been built over the last 30 years establishing itself as the market leader and is hugely feature-rich. Primarily, we are focused on futureproofing the application by moving to a new technology platform which will also enable us to make the most of its rich features – but that can’t just happen overnight. That meant we had to draw up a strategy, which has been geared towards four specific areas:
- Increasing user experience
- Standardizing integrations,
- Optimizing connectivity and security,
- Evolution to add value
In each of these areas, we’ve been focusing on vessel personas – developing solutions that align to the specific roles of users both on ship and shore – to create an ecosystem of web apps, mobile apps and services, programmable interfaces for easy integration and robust transition processes that add the most value, all implemented at a pace to suit the individual customer.
Wow, that sounds exciting! Have you faced any challenges?
We needed to avoid a basic ‘lift and shift’ of the existing application, as that would be of limited benefit to our customers. Instead, we wanted to make sure our modernized system delivered more and would do so well in the future.
Let’s take Web Approvals as an example. We started with an MVP back in 2021, and through continuous development using feedback from our customers, we’re now on version 3.0, a comprehensive decision-making toolset. By doing it this way, we’ve been able to address several pain points so they’re no longer an issue – such as opening up FAT Client to approve an order, opening a laptop while in drydock, working with different WiFi bandwidths, connecting to VPNs and using phone or email to make changes. The process also showed the importance of user experience. As a web-based app, it’s device-independent so mobile or tablet can be used to approve or reject an order – improving response times by over 50%.
It’s clearly an ongoing process. What’s been delivered so far?
We’ve already got a number of functionalities covered, all of which improve the user experience, whether it’s capturing data or approving a transaction. The areas they cover include Inventory and Maintenance management onboard, Approvals and decision-making toolset for senior stakeholders, Data Analytics and Document Management – one of the areas where customers can see various benefits is our SDK (Software Development Kit), which enables them to integrate with several apps using our standard APIs.
So exactly what benefits do customers see?
There are so many different roles in any cruise operation, from engineers to buyers and storekeepers to superintendents – but the beauty is, that every one of them will benefit by having an AMOS solution tailored to what they do, giving them the right data to make informed decisions, improving the way they work and enabling them to deliver maximum value in their organization. So ultimately, the AMOS system brings significant benefits across the entire organization to maximize fleet performance and drive cost efficiencies.
What’s the role of the AMOS Product Committee in all this?
The Committee is an invaluable link between us and our customers. It means we can work directly with cruise personnel, reviewing requirements and wireframes before development, building MVPs so they can give us direct feedback, and enabling us to share and listen to their opinions so we can address any challenges they face. It’s a fantastic collaborative tool that helps us deliver maximum value in our products.
Finally, what are your views on the future? What trends do you see developing, and how will high-quality data play a role in the cruise industry?
Data is the key to so much for the future of the industry, whether this be supporting Artificial Intelligence (AI) or the Internet of Things (IoT). Seeing what spares are on board, how many incidents occurred, insights on fuel consumption…the list is endless, and having good data available to analyze enables cruise staff at all levels to make better, well-informed decisions as well as automate processes. It goes beyond just predictive analytics and gives real power to organizations to work smarter and operate more efficiently. That’s why we’ve invested so much in our mobile, web and SDK products, to fully support better management of cruise assets and enablement of industry trends.
Naz Miah, thank you.
To find out more about AMOS Asset Management Solutions, simply Contact Us.