Thames Clippers has turned to powerful operational management system Centrik to overhaul its increasingly complex safety reporting, documentation, compliance and training processes.

The successful London-based river bus service has seen rapid growth in recent years, adding five new catamarans to its now 19-strong fleet. With passenger numbers in excess of 4 million per year, the company required an operational management system capable of handling the intricacies of its day-to-day operations, while having the ability to scale up in line with any future growth.

Jake Lewis, Safety Manager for Thames Clippers says: “Centrik has completely changed the way we operate. Our previous paper-based system was becoming unwieldy and unmanageable as the business grew; the offices were fit to burst with files and we were losing hours of time, and therefore money, keeping on top of the admin.

“Now, everything is instantly handled through Centrik. We have more than 300 members of staff using the system, who can view, track and update operational and compliance documentation or safety and incident reports in real time, even out on the water – it is an incredibly powerful resource to have at our disposal.”

Centrik has allowed Thames Clippers to remove all paper from its vessels as well, replacing the vast amounts of safety documentation – including the 30 to 40 page Daily Briefing Sheet, which had to be printed individually for every boat, every day – with two onboard iPads running the system, providing crews with instant access to all they need.

In addition to cutting down on extraneous documentation, Centrik is also providing Thames Clippers crews with an additional safety measure; in case of an emergency, the system’s all-new Emergency Response tool provides the team with a centralised way of highlighting and updating all necessary emergency workflows in real time, as well as automatically generating an email, voicemail and text message notification to selected recipients on activation of any emergency plan, creating an instant record within the system.

This constantly updated repository of every process, action and outcome across its operation allows Thames Clippers to use Centrik to fully evidence its safety and risk management system, processes and subsequent actions, as required – a level of functionality that impressed the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) as part of a recent Document of Compliance audit.

“We’re now able to quickly see how our entire operation is performing, monitoring events across the fleet in real time. We can then scrutinise our performance using Centrik’s analysis tools, using heat maps to build a visual representation of what is happening, helping us to improve our processes in the future,” adds Lewis.

Elsewhere, Centrik’s training module is being used by staff to track and monitor their own training certification – another process that had previously relied on long email and paper chains, taking up valuable time and personnel. Now, Centrik’s fully electronic training platform proactively tracks and automatically updates employee qualifications and re-certifications via their own individual dashboard, helping to ensure they don’t operate when out of currency.

Looking forward, Thames Clippers is also working with Centrik to utilise the system as a maintenance tool, allowing defects to be logged live by a boat’s crew, triggering an alert to the engineering team so they can plan for any maintenance or repair requirements.