PMS requirements & RFP checklist

1. Fleet and scope

Vendors price and demo against this. Vague scope is what produces a vague quote.

• Number of vessels today, and the expected count in three years.
• Ship types and trades — bulk, tanker, container, offshore, coastal.
• Flag administrations and classification societies involved.
• Number of shore users, superintendents and vessels per superintendent.
• Which vessels are in the pilot, and the date the pilot must be complete.
• Whether managed vessels for third-party owners require separated reporting.

2. Planned maintenance — must have

• Equipment register with maker, model, location, criticality and running hours.
• Jobs triggered by both calendar interval and running hours, on the same equipment.
• Critical equipment flagged per ISM, with overdue jobs escalating automatically.
• Deferral with reason, approver and expiry — not a silent date change.
• Job history retained permanently, exportable, and attributable to a named person.
• Spare parts linked to the job, with lead time and reorder point visible.
• Class survey and continuous machinery survey items tracked against the same equipment.

3. Offline and bandwidth reality

This is the section that eliminates most systems. Test it, do not accept a statement.

• The application opens and is fully usable with the connection physically disabled.
• Jobs can be completed, and evidence captured, while offline.
• Queued changes sync automatically and visibly when connectivity returns.
• Conflict handling is defined when ship and office edit the same record.
• No mandatory large file download at each login on a metered connection.
• Works on the hardware actually on board, including older tablets in the engine room.

4. Compliance and audit evidence

• ISM, ISPS, SOLAS, MARPOL and MLC certificates with issue, expiry and window alerts.
• Evidence — photos, reports, signed records — attached to the job or certificate it proves.
• Immutable audit trail: who changed what, when, and what the previous value was.
• Non-conformities with root cause, corrective action, owner and verified close-out.
• One-click export of an audit or vetting pack for a single vessel and date range.
• Drill and inspection schedules with overdue alerting to the DPA.

5. Prediction and decision support

• Condition or sensor data can adjust job timing, not just record a reading.
• Remaining useful life or health scoring at equipment level, with the basis explained.
• Spares forecasting that accounts for lead time and where the ship will actually be.
• Audit-readiness or PSC-risk scoring that can be shown to an owner.
• The logic is inspectable — you can see why the system moved a job.

6. Data, migration and exit

• Migration scope: equipment, job templates, history, running hours, certificates, documents.
• Who performs the migration, at what cost, and how errors are corrected.
• Parallel-running period agreed in writing before the old system is switched off.
• Full data export in an open format, on demand, at no charge, including attachments.
• Contractual exit terms: notice, data return, deletion certificate.

7. Security, hosting and continuity

• Where data is hosted, and under which legal jurisdiction.
• Access control by role, with the ability to restrict crew to their own vessel.
• Encryption in transit and at rest; stated backup frequency and restore test evidence.
• Incident notification commitment and support response times by severity.
• What happens to your data and access if the vendor is acquired or ceases trading.

8. Commercials

• Three-year total cost for the exact ship count, all fees included, in one currency.
• Price basis stated: per vessel or per user, and the cost of adding or removing a ship.
• Annual uplift capped in the contract.
• Every optional module listed with its price, even those not being bought today.
• Trial or pilot terms, and what happens to pilot data if you do not proceed.
• Two reference customers of similar fleet size and trade, contactable directly.