Onboard Tracker’s continual commitment to Aberdeen City Centre

Feb 2, 2023

Bridge House, located at 56-58 Bridge Street, is set to undergo a quarter of a million-pound investment to renovate and modernise the premises.

The six-floor office building forms part of the Aberdeen Conservation Area and was once the location of iconic Aberdeen business, John Bell Antiques in the mid 1900’s.

More recently, the building has been home to both our team here at Solab, and business and marine travel specialist ATPI.

Both of our businesses have confirmed their commitment to the city centre by extending their respective leases for 10 years.

Bridge House Investments’ spokesman Iain Hawthorne, said, “We’re really pleased to have secured further lease periods from our two blue chip tenants.

“We have worked with both businesses for several years during the ups and downs of the oil and gas business and the changing face of the city centre.  As owners of the building, we continue to invest in the fabric and presentation of the premises and are in the process of a £250k investment to ensure that Bridge House remains an attractive option close to the city centre and transport infrastructure.”

Kevin Coll, Managing Director, Solab, said, “Solab is a proud advocate for city centre businesses operations in Aberdeen and the central location works well for our entire team. Bridge House has excellent digital infrastructure and its location and access to parking has made it an ideal base from which to grow our business over the last three decades. We hope our continued investment helps attract other companies into the city centre to secure its future.”

Russell Borthwick, Chief Executive, Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce, commented: “It’s a further piece of good news for the city centre that Solab and ATPI have chosen to invest in a long-term commitment to their Bridge Street premises.

“Towns and cities everywhere are seeking to adapt to the changing environment and as we continue the process of reinventing Aberdeen city centre, it’s vital that we create places where people will want to spend leisure time, live and work.

“This announcement is another important piece of the jigsaw with two high profile businesses making a statement about their commitment to providing high quality workspace for their staff in an iconic building in the heart of Aberdeen.”

ATPI Managing Director, UK, Adam Knights, added, “ATPI are delighted to have re-signed our lease on a long-term basis at Bridge House.

“We considered a number of satellite business parks in our review process and ultimately decided that the city centre location provided us the right location to access our entire customer base.

“We have a long-term relationship with our landlords and have jointly invested in the internal infrastructure to improve the working environment for our staff.  We look forward to continuing this over the coming years”.

In addition to the lease extensions, one floor of approximately 2,000 square feet is undergoing extensive ‘good as new’ refurbishment and will be available for a discerning tenant to take possession in the next few weeks.  FG Burnett is marketing the available floor and would be pleased to hear from potential tenants, who could customise any aspect of the refurbishment if preferred.

Thanks again to Bridge House for providing the perfect space for our team, and we look forward to the next decade with you.

ONBOARD TRACKER™ SECURES CONTRACT WIN WITH TECHNIPFMC

Jan 26, 2023

TechnipFMC is the latest subsea client to employ our crew management software Onboard Tracker™. Through the new streamlined system, TechnipFMC can make best use of processes and create a single point of storage for data to maximise crew planning, scheduling and training management for offshore personnel.

The move sees TechnipFMC join the ranks of Onboard Tracker™ clients including Subsea 7, Boskalis and Semco Maritime all of whom use the online hub to manage personnel logistics and planning, crew rotations, training, certification and competence.

Onboard Tracker™ is a modular, web-based Software as a Service (SaaS) platform which manages the safe and efficient crewing of tens of thousands of energy and maritime personnel across the globe.  Our technology acts as a leading light in the North East’s Digital Workforce initiatives and keeps tens of thousands of energy workers trained, competent and safe on over 70% of the manned rigs in the UKCS, and in over 70 countries worldwide.

Exponential growth means that the subsea sector now accounts for almost half of the company’s clients.  Additionally, the rise in uptake has resulted in the system now being used to manage almost one third of subsea marine vessels in the UKCS – a figure which is expected to show a further marked increase during the rest of this year and beyond.

To reflect growing uptake in the market, a number of subsea and marine-focussed improvements have been incorporated into Onboard Tracker™ to enable clients to manage key operations such as saturation diving time, lieu management, leave liquidation and minimum manning levels to track resource gaps, and plan and forecast future personnel issues.

Commenting on the ongoing success with the system, our Managing Director Kevin Coll said: “Onboard Tracker™ has seen a substantial increase in subsea and marine clients in the last two years with 45% of our clients now operating in the subsea sector.

“We have noticed an undercurrent of change during that time as subsea organisations prioritise the use of digital technology to transform the way they operate, clearly demonstrating that Onboard Tracker™ fully aligns with a breadth of clients across the industry.”

Our Implementation Manager, Tanya Urquhart, was instrumental in ensuring TechnipFMC’s move to Onboard Tracker™.  She added: “TechnipFMC made the switch from a number of different systems to our enhanced operating system.

“The technology is now supporting TechnipFMC’s fleet operations globally and we are delighted that their team has fully embraced the technology.  They are now experiencing the benefits a digitally connected system brings to their vessel operations – dashboard and reporting options gives each user a personalised experience as well as tailoring it for their own function within the business along with Power BI reporting and technology.”

She added: “One of the many benefits of Onboard Tracker™ is that the software is continually evolving, and we keep our clients up-to-date with new functionality options every step of the way.  By harnessing subsea and technological expertise, we will continue to develop the integrated platform in step with the dynamic needs of the subsea and wider energy industry.”

For more information on Solab and Onboard Tracker, click here. 

Zoe Prentice Completes ONE Graduate Scheme at Solab

Nov 29, 2022

We are delighted to announce our Business Support Graduate Zoe Prentice has successfully completed her graduate programme with Opportunity North East. We celebrated this milestone for Zoe at the ONE Graduates Into Business event held at the Chester Hotel in November.

Zoe joined our team with a yearlong placement in collaboration with Opportunity North East (ONE), who fund training for SME’s taking on graduates. The programme provided a structured training and personal development programme ensuring companies across various sectors and graduates maximised benefits, enabling graduates to learn and develop as a cohort and supporting one another in a peer-to-peer environment.

At the event, Zoe and our Managing Director Kevin Coll, both took to the stage to reflect on their experiences with the programme, and how beneficial it is to both businesses and graduates.

Zoe presented a wonderful speech, taking us on her journey from struggling to find the right job during the pandemic, to helping organise user forums with Onboard Tracker. During these 12 months, Zoe has undertaken courses in Presentation and Communication Skills, Copywriting, Digital Marketing, Sales and Marketing, Project Management and Stakeholder Management. Alongside these courses, she has been working in a variety of roles within Solab and OBT to help guide her in the direction of her interests, and find where her strengths can be put into practice. 

 Zoe commented that “All of these workshops have allowed me to increase my self-belief, and gain exposure that has been vital to my success in my job.”

The ONE Graduate Placement has allowed Zoe to grow and develop her skillset which she can use to assist her in her future with Solab. We are beyond proud of Zoe and her astonishing development during the last year. She has brought invaluable insight to our team and embraced all challenges and tasks given to her here at Solab.

Congratulations Zoe!

 

 

 

 

Crewing and Cocktails

Nov 22, 2022

Crewing and Cocktails? Put them together and you have the industry’s best User-Forum!

We would like to thank all who gave up their valuable time (and even travelled across countries!) to make it there for what was an incredibly exciting, inspiring and chatter-packed day at ONE Tech Hub on the 22^nd of September 2022.

Crewing and Cocktails provided our users a uniquely valuable opportunity to hear and interact with Onboard Tracker’s latest features, but equally help shape its product roadmap – so that together we can ensure that Onboard Tracker remains the best Crew Management, Certification, and Competence platform for Energy, Marine and Renewables.

This event was the second in a series of get-togethers with our Onboard Tracker users to share invaluable insights, ideas and stories on the different ways Onboard Tracker has impacted your organisations–and we must specially thank those who took to the stage to share and encourage their industry peers to do the same. We cannot thank everyone enough for their enthusiasm and participation, making the day so successful.

To kick off the day Kate Synott, Project Manager at Opportunity Northeast provided us with a history of the ONE Tech Hub Building and reminded us of the great work they do at ONE for small business start-ups, growing tech firms and tech talent in the Northeast.

Solab and Onboard Tracker’s Managing Director, Kevin Coll and Business Development Manager, Emily Reid, began our Super-User Workshop by demonstrating Onboard Trackers latest features. Many of you in the room were able share your own success stories of how Onboard has “completely transformed our crewing operations” and “now allows us to focus on proactive strategic improvements rather than being buried in data”.

Following on, from our Implementation Team, Rachael, Tanya and Vicky took to the floor to share their favourite OBT tips and tricks. A behind the scenes peek into Onboard development was provided by our Development Team Lead and QA Manager, Max, and Graeme, the co-founder of OBT and Software Systems Architect. Finally, our data scientist Lynsey shared a highlight reel of our most loved and used PowerBI dashboards and reports.

Our teams are now busier than ever implementing the great ideas and functionality that was shown on the day. We were delighted to see the passion and engagement from clients and the Onboard Tracker team – and a genuine commitment to work together to make sure that Onboard Tracker builds on its position as the “one Crew Management system for our industry”.

The response has been outstanding, and we are delighted to share the following feedback which we have received from the Crewing & Cocktails forum so far:

“The system just keeps developing and we do too along with it.”

“Great content and presentations.”

“Thank you for our invite – it was great to hear more about Onboard Tracker with a lookback at the journey as well as what’s to come as things continue to evolve.”

“No other software does this for their clients.”

Another huge thank you to all our clients who attended and provided this amazing feedback – we cannot advance our systems without your valuable input.

We would also like to extend a massive thank you to One Tech Hub for hosting, ByPlatter for catering and Orchid for supplying delicious cocktails – the favourite of the day being the “No Spreadsheeto Mojito!”

For more information on how Onboard Tracker can help your business, click here.

Meet Louise, Our Software Support Specialist

Nov 17, 2022

An interview with Louise, our new Software Support Specialist

Onboard Tracker™ is pleased to welcome Louise to the team as Software Support Specialist. This role is fundamental to the smooth daily running and development of Onboard Tracker™ operations, so we decided to ask her a few questions about her exciting new position…

What attracted you to Onboard Tracker™?

I’ve had a lot of experience using Onboard Tracker™ in my previous role in the Oil & Gas sector and was really impressed with it as a system and how user-friendly and progressive it was. I also had the opportunity to meet and work with the Solab team regularly and was always struck by how efficient, proactive, and positive they were. Onboard Tracker™ is developing at such a rate that when a role became available to join the team, I knew it would be an exciting opportunity too good to miss.

What can you offer to the team?

Not only am I a big fan of Onboard Tracker™, but I also love data, analysis and manipulating it to reach a positive end goal. I also am a keen problem solver and enjoy getting stuck into a variety of projects. I am used to working in fast-paced environments and have strong attention to detail which is key when working with client data. I also love working as part of team – something that Onboard Tracker™ seem to do very well.

What are you excited to learn more about?

I’ve only been here a couple of weeks but already amazed to discover just how much Onboard Tracker™ can do and has to offer! I thought I knew the system inside out, but it turns out I was only scratching the surface. I’m looking forward to exploring the system further, getting to know our range of clients more deeply to better understand how the powerful system is meeting their specific business needs.

The Power BI function also fascinates me – it is impressive to see how the data can perform depending on client requirements.

But what I’m most looking forward to is working with and learning from the awesome team at Onboard Tracker™ – they are so experienced and passionate about what they do that it’s hard not to be inspired every day at work.

I’ve learned so much in the past couple of weeks and I am excited to soak up more!

What achievement are you most proud of?

Something that we probably can all relate to – surviving lockdown! More specifically, surviving working from home while trying to entertain a toddler who was too little to understand why soft play was closed.

Due to constant changes with lockdown regulations, furlough and how it affected the offshore industry my job quickly became just as demanding as my 2-year-old. Luckily predominantly using Onboard Tracker™ as part of my role meant I could work simultaneously from my laptop, phone and iPad (when it wasn’t stuck on CBeebies!). This flexibility eased what was already a very stressful situation and meant I could be more present in both my roles without being stuck behind a desktop for hours on end.

Thank you for taking the time to chat with us Louise, we are so excited to see the work that you deliver and the value you will bring to the Onboard Tracker™ team.

Stay tuned on our ‘News’ page for future updates of what our team get up to.