DNV ShipManager is a genuinely modular marine fleet management suite, and that word carries more weight than most buyers give it. The platform is assembled from ShipManager Technical for planned maintenance, Procurement, QHSE, Crewing with integrated payroll, Hull Integrity Management, Dry-docking and Ship Repair, and the Analyzer business intelligence layer — and DNV states that operators can license individual modules or the complete suite. DNV reports 300 customers and more than 6,000 vessels running its maritime software, with ShipManager deployments including whole fleets such as Ahrenkiel Steamship's 60 vessels. For a DNV-classed fleet running technical, procurement, crewing and hull integrity through one connected data model, that integration is difficult to beat, and the Machinery Maintenance Connect interface is a real operational asset. The evaluation question is narrower than the marketing conversation usually allows: are you operating the breadth you licensed, and does the architecture match how your crews actually record work? Lean fleets frequently discover they are funding a full ship management system to solve a maintenance and inspection problem. This guide compares the alternatives on module fit, class integration, mobile working and per-vessel cost. Start a free trial of Marine Inspection and test your own equipment register before the next renewal fixes the decision for another term.
6,000+
Vessels on DNV Software
DNV figure across its maritime software portfolio
7
Core Module Families
Technical, Procurement, QHSE, Crewing, Hull, Dry-dock, Analyzer
300
Software Customers
DNV figure for shipping companies using its maritime software
6-15
Months to Go-Live
Typical enterprise suite implementation window
What ShipManager Includes, and What You Actually Operate
Modularity cuts both ways. It lets a fleet buy only what it needs, and it lets a fleet accumulate modules that made sense at signature and go unopened three years later. Work through the list below and mark each one honestly. Book a Marine Inspection demo to see what the maintenance and inspection subset looks like as a standalone platform rather than one module in a suite.
ShipManager Technical
The planned maintenance system. Counter-based, calendar-based and condition-based task scheduling, planned and unplanned maintenance documentation, automatic stock count updates against parts consumed, and job categorisation by criteria including critical, safety relevant, class relevant and origin.
Do you use condition-based scheduling, or is everything on calendar and running hours?
Procurement
Requisition, order management, supplier handling and stock control, connected to the Fleet Equipment Register so that parts consumption and maintenance records stay aligned without manual transfer.
Does your requisition-to-purchase-order chain live here, or in finance?
QHSE
Safety management system covering quality and safety processes, designed to reduce the administrative load of shipping regulation across audits, incidents, non-conformities and corrective action.
Is your SMS documentation genuinely in here, or still in a document library?
Crewing and Payroll
Crew Data, Crew Planning, Payroll, Crew Resting Hours, Appraisals, Canteen and Ship Cash Box, with fleetwide work and rest hour monitoring and wage scale handling for bargaining agreements.
Do you run payroll here, or does a manning agent handle it externally?
Hull Integrity Management
Hull strategy, inspection planning, condition assessment, specification and documentation, with the IHM process integrated across the Fleet Equipment Register, Order Management, Stock Control and PMS for Hong Kong Convention and EU SRR compliance.
Is hull condition managed in the system, or by a third-party surveyor's reports?
Dry-docking and Ship Repair
Specification building, yard tendering, project cost control and repair execution tracking across the docking cycle.
How many docking projects a year justify a dedicated licensed module?
Analyzer
Business intelligence layer with plug-and-play dashboards that extract from the underlying modules without manual processing, plus drill-down, ad-hoc analysis and automated reporting into PowerPoint or PDF.
Who opens these dashboards, and how often, in a normal month?
The Honest Count
If you marked three or fewer of the modules above as genuinely operated, you are running a maintenance and inspection workload on a full ship management system. That is a fit question, not a quality question, and it is the single strongest signal that the wider market is worth evaluating.
Which modules would you renew if each were priced separately today?
The Class Integration Question
ShipManager's tightest advantage is its relationship with DNV class. That advantage is real for DNV-classed tonnage and thins considerably for mixed-class fleets, so it deserves to be assessed directly rather than assumed either way.
What You Gain
ShipManager Technical interfaces with Machinery Maintenance Connect, which DNV states enables its surveyors to audit an entire fleet in a single day rather than vessel by vessel. Jobs can be tagged class relevant at source, digital machinery maintenance surveys are available to DNV-classed fleets alongside fleet maintenance benchmarks, and the free Fleet Status service gives class and vessel status, survey and audit overviews and technical expert access across the fleet.
What It Assumes
The benefit is scoped to DNV-classed vessels. A fleet split across DNV, Lloyd's Register, Bureau Veritas, ABS and ClassNK realises the integration on only part of its tonnage while paying for the platform across all of it. Fleet-wide digital survey handling also assumes the vessel already sits on a machinery survey arrangement that supports it, which is a class question rather than a software one.
What to Verify
Ask what proportion of your tonnage actually benefits. Ask what the equivalent workflow looks like for your non-DNV vessels. Ask your other societies what they accept as maintenance evidence from a class-neutral platform, because what class assesses is whether adequate maintenance was carried out at the right interval by competent people with the right parts, and whether the condition found was recorded.
Capability Comparison: Full Suite Against Modern Cloud PMS
Both categories claim every feature. Compare on the lines where architecture forces a genuine difference, and use the final column to settle each one inside a demo rather than a datasheet. Sign up for Marine Inspection and run these tests against your own vessel data.
Table 1: Modular Marine Suite Compared With Modern Cloud PMS
| Line | Modular Marine Suite Pattern | Modern Cloud PMS Pattern | Verify in the Demo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Functional scope | Technical, procurement, QHSE, crewing and payroll, hull integrity, dry-docking and BI on one connected model | Maintenance, inspection, defect management, spares and compliance evidence only | Price only the modules you would genuinely operate in year one |
| Class integration | Deep interface with the affiliated society, including fleet-level digital machinery survey handling | Class-neutral, with no relationship between the software vendor and your survey authority | Calculate the share of your tonnage that actually realises the integration |
| Crew working model | Common ship and shore user interface with replication between vessel and office | Full create, edit and submit offline on phone or tablet, syncing on reconnection | Airplane mode, close a job with photos, reconnect and watch the sync resolve |
| Hosting | Self-hosted or vendor-hosted server option removing the need to run your own database and application server | Multi-tenant cloud only, no server, no client install, no version pinned to a vessel | Ask who patches what, and what a version upgrade costs in fleet downtime |
| Time to first value | Commonly 6 to 15 months across configuration, migration, integration and training | Roughly 6 to 12 weeks, and 6 to 10 weeks for five to eight vessels with usable records | Request a phased plan with named milestones, not an average timeline |
| Commercial model | Custom quotation by fleet, module and user; multi-year terms typical; services quoted separately | Published per-vessel or per-user subscription with the module set fixed at signature | Ask for year-one and year-three totals in writing, services included |
| Maintenance scheduling | Counter, calendar and condition-based triggers with class relevant and safety relevant job tagging | Interval and running-hour triggers with certificate windows and survey due dates | Rebuild three of your most complex job cards live in both systems |
| Reporting access | BI layer with plug-and-play dashboards and automated reporting into PowerPoint or PDF | Self-serve dashboards for overdue counts, backlog by vessel and completion rate out of the box | Ask a superintendent-level question live and time how long the answer takes |
| Migration path | Structured implementation with vendor domain expertise across capture and migration from many sources | Established import routes exist from major maritime systems, including ShipManager databases | Ask for a completed migration reference off your specific incumbent |
2026 EVALUATION REALITY
The regulatory floor is platform-independent. ISM Code Element 10 requires every company holding a Document of Compliance to run a documented maintenance system, and SOLAS Chapter IX makes ISM mandatory for SOLAS-certified ships, so passenger ships, cargo ships of 500 GT and above and mobile offshore drilling units are in scope whatever software they run. IACS formalised PMS requirements in 2001, and Bureau Veritas, DNV, Lloyd's Register and ABS all approve owners' maintenance systems and conduct the initial survey. A PMS survey arrangement generally assumes continuous machinery survey, so confirm your existing regime before assuming any platform change alters your survey credit. Migration off a major suite is a solved problem. Established import routes exist from ShipManager, AMOS, SERTICA and other maritime databases, so treat data lock-in as a commercial negotiation rather than a technical barrier.
See the Maintenance Subset as a Standalone Platform
Equipment registers, interval and running-hour triggers, defect-to-work-order closure, spares, certificate windows and class survey dates — without the modules you never open. Marine Inspection gives chief engineers and superintendents offline mobile capture on any device and fleet-wide visibility from one dashboard.
Total Cost: Where a Modular Suite Gets Expensive
Modularity makes the entry price look reasonable and the third-year price look different. Market analysis puts unlisted items at 20 to 40 percent of first-year total cost of ownership when they are not surfaced before signature, and professional services alone commonly add 20 to 30 percent in the enterprise tier. Schedule a demo to see per-vessel pricing applied to your fleet without a custom-quote cycle.
Table 2: Cost Lines, Typical Patterns and the Question That Surfaces Each
| Cost Line | Modular Suite Pattern | Cloud Subscription Pattern | Put This in Writing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Module accumulation | Each module licensed separately; capability assumed included may sit in a module you do not hold | Defined module set at a published price point | Itemised price per module, and the cost of dropping one at renewal |
| Implementation services | Domain expertise and data capture across many sources; frequently adds 20 to 30 percent in year one | Bundled or a fixed onboarding fee | Fixed-fee ceiling for go-live across the whole fleet |
| Hosting | Self-hosted server with refresh cycle, or a vendor-hosted option priced as a service | Included, with backup and patching held by the vendor | Hosted option cost per vessel per year, quoted separately from licences |
| Integration builds | Each connector into finance, telematics or voyage scoped as its own project | Documented API access, typically inside the subscription | Is API access included at our tier, or behind an upgrade? |
| Crew turnover | Per-user training repeated as crews rotate every few months | Role-based onboarding and in-product guidance for new joiners | Retraining cost for a full crew change on a single vessel |
| Non-DNV tonnage | Full platform cost applies fleetwide while class integration benefits only classed vessels | Identical terms across every vessel regardless of society | Effective cost per vessel for the tonnage that gains no class integration |
| Contract exposure | Multi-year terms with uplift at renegotiation and early termination provisions | Annual or monthly terms at published rates | Contractual cap on annual increases |
Fleet Profile Router: Which Answer Fits You
Four profiles cover most operators evaluating ShipManager at renewal. Find yours, then test the verdict rather than accepting it. Start a free trial and settle the offline and adoption questions with a real test instead of an assumption.
A
Predominantly DNV-classed, full suite in daily use
Stay
You are realising the integration on most of your tonnage and operating the breadth you licensed. Machinery Maintenance Connect and fleet-level survey handling are worth real money here. Negotiate the renewal on price and support terms, not on platform.
B
DNV-classed, but only Technical and Procurement in use
Trim
Keep the class advantage and stop paying for what nobody opens. Take an itemised module price list into the renewal and drop what has not been used in twelve months. If the vendor will not unbundle, that answer is itself a data point.
C
Mixed-class fleet with maintenance and inspection as the core need
Evaluate
The class integration reaches only part of your tonnage while the platform cost reaches all of it. A class-neutral cloud PMS removes the asymmetry, deploys in weeks and prices per vessel. Confirm acceptance with each of your societies before committing.
D
Lean fleet under 20 vessels with crews working around the system
Evaluate
Job completion reconstructed at the end of a watch is not maintenance evidence, it is a record written after the fact. Mobile-first capture at the machine is the structural fix, and a six to ten week deployment is achievable at this fleet size.
Evaluation Checklist Before You Sign Anything
Run this against every shortlisted platform, including the incumbent at renewal. It targets the points that separate a system crews use from one they work around. Book a walkthrough with Marine Inspection and work through it against your own vessel data.
Module Fit
Itemised price for every module, and the renewal cost of dropping any one
Usage report showing which modules were actually opened in the last twelve months
Confirmation of which capabilities sit one module or tier above your current holding
Written list of the modules you would renew if each were priced independently
Class and Regulatory
Share of your tonnage that realises the class integration, calculated by vessel
Equivalent workflow demonstrated for vessels classed with another society
ISM Element 10 evidence pack generated live from your own data
Machinery survey regime confirmed before assuming any change in survey credit
Crew and Offline Reality
Job closed offline on a phone with photo evidence, then synced on reconnection
Defect raised at the equipment and converted to a work order without shore input
Running-hour entry completed at the machine rather than at end of watch
New joiner completing a first job with no classroom training
Data and Commercial
Completed migration reference off your specific incumbent platform
Years of job history included in the quoted migration, stated in the contract
Export path confirmed, with your data retrievable in open format on exit
Year-one and year-three totals including services, hosting and integrations
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the main alternatives to DNV ShipManager in 2026?
Alternatives group into tiers rather than a ranked list. Full marine ERP suites integrate technical, commercial, crewing and financial management on one data model. Established maritime PMS specialists offer comparable maintenance depth with per-vessel licensing and shorter implementations. Modern cloud PMS platforms including Marine Inspection are mobile-first with offline vessel working, published pricing and deployment measured in weeks. Generic industrial CMMS products suit shore facilities and shipyards but typically lack Continuous Machinery Survey logic and ship-to-shore offline sync. Identify the tier that matches your fleet size, class mix and operating pain before comparing individual products.
Will leaving ShipManager affect our DNV class relationship?
Classification and software procurement are separate commercial relationships. What class assesses is whether adequate maintenance was carried out at the right interval by competent people with the right parts, and whether the condition found was recorded. What you would give up is convenience rather than compliance: the Machinery Maintenance Connect interface, digital machinery maintenance surveys for classed tonnage, and fleet-level survey handling. Services such as Fleet Status remain available to owners and managers of DNV-classed vessels independently of which maintenance software you run. Confirm acceptance of your chosen platform with DNV and with every other society in your fleet before switching.
Can ShipManager data be migrated to another platform?
Yes. ShipManager databases sit among the maritime systems that competing vendors publicly list as established import sources, alongside AMOS, SERTICA and others. Standard practice covers extraction, cleansing and validation, mapping into the new equipment hierarchy, and a final review with your technical team before go-live. Establish in the contract how many years of job history, spares records and inspection data are included, who owns the cleansing work, and what the export path looks like if you leave the new platform later. Records that will never be queried again are better archived than migrated.
Is ShipManager too heavy for a fleet under 20 vessels?
Not inherently, and DNV positions the software for fleets from a few vessels to hundreds. The practical test is module utilisation and crew behaviour rather than headcount. A twelve-vessel operator running technical, procurement, QHSE, crewing and hull integrity through one connected model is getting full value. A twelve-vessel operator using two modules while engineers record jobs on paper and type them up later is funding a ship management system to solve a maintenance problem. Count the modules you genuinely operate, then decide.
How long does it take to move to a cloud PMS?
For five to eight vessels with reasonably complete records, roughly six to ten weeks covering data audit, extraction and cleansing, single-vessel pilot, crew training and phased rollout. Enterprise implementations more commonly run 6 to 15 months. Data quality moves the timeline far more than software does. Run one vessel in parallel for a full cycle before committing the fleet, train crews during cutover rather than after it, and set a firm read-only date on the legacy system, because a writable old platform keeps part of the crew on it and leaves the new one half-adopted.
Pay for the Modules You Actually Open
Equipment registers, interval and running-hour triggers, defect-to-work-order closure, spares, certificate windows and class survey dates — class-neutral across every society in your fleet, with true offline capture on any device. No custom-quote cycle, no server, no multi-quarter implementation before you see value.
