Seafood processing
The challenge. Ryan runs his family’s small seafood processing plant by the Boston Fish Pier. When the boats come in, his crew must be on the line within the hour, or the catch loses its price. But boats keep no timetable. So he pays six people to wait from dawn, some days for nothing. Other days a boat arrives and half the crew is home.
The flow. With xMap Flows, Ryan built Cedar. Every fifteen minutes, over Boston Harbor, Cedar listens for the boats out on the water, keeps the fishing boats, notices when one enters the harbour, and tells the crew to come in.
The result. Now the crew sleeps until Cedar writes. A trawler crosses into the harbour at four, and the message reaches six phones at once. By five the line is running, and the haddock is on ice within the hour. Ryan stopped paying people to wait for the sea. Now the sea calls them in.
6crew called in at once
<1 hfrom harbour to ice
0 hpaid waiting at dawn
Blocks: Schedule → Area of interest → Ships (AIS) → Filter → Zone alert → WhatsApp Business
Watch the one-minute story →
Port authority
The challenge. Yannis is a duty officer at the port authority of Piraeus, the sea gate of Athens. Undersea cables carry power to the islands across a stretch where no ship may anchor. Waiting ships drift in at night anyway. One dragged anchor last winter cut an island’s power for four days, and nobody saw it happen.
The flow. With xMap Flows, Yannis built Sentry. Every five minutes, across the waters off Piraeus, Sentry listens for every ship, spots any that entered the cable zone, keeps the ones slowing down to anchor, tells the patrol boat, and marks them on the duty map.
The result. Last Thursday at two in the morning, a tanker slowed inside the zone. Sentry warned the patrol boat within five minutes, and the ship moved off before its anchor touched the seabed. Yannis cannot watch every ship. Now he does not have to.
5 minbetween checks, day and night
1tanker moved off last week
0cables cut since
Blocks: Schedule → Area of interest → Ships (AIS) → Zone alert → Filter → WhatsApp Business → Show on a map
Watch the one-minute story →
Marine insurance
The challenge. Seojun underwrites cargo insurance at a big marine insurer in Busan, one of the world's busiest ports. When a typhoon swings towards the coast, his clients’ ships are out there with insured cargo. He checks ship trackers in one window, the forecast in another, his policies in a third. By the time he calls the owners, the ships are in the storm.
The flow. With xMap Flows, Seojun built Wren. Every hour, around Busan port and its approaches, Wren lists every ship at sea, keeps only those carrying cargo he insures, checks the wind ahead where each one is, picks out the ones heading into a gale, and warns their owners while there is time to shelter.
The result. When the last typhoon turned north, Wren flagged seven insured ships six hours ahead of the gales. Five sheltered in the inner harbour, two slowed down at sea. Not one container was lost, and Seojun made seven calls instead of seventy. Seojun used to watch typhoons hit. Now he watches them miss.
7insured ships flagged early
6 hof warning before the gales
0containers lost
Blocks: Schedule → Area of interest → Ships (AIS) → Match with my table → Weather forecast → Filter → Slack
Watch the one-minute story →