Absolutely! SAP Event Management is designed to track any event the user defines. Since it functions as a standalone system (independent not only of SAP Transportation Management, but also SAP ECC (ERP) or SAP APO), it can be integrated into any ERP environment as well as a company's legacy system. The flexibility of SAP EM is in the beauty of its design. Originality conceived as transportation execution software and developed as part of the SAP Railcar Management System, Supply Chain Event Management was homogenized into a system capable of tracking anything defined as an event.
The movement of a boat, whether it be carrying cargo or creatures, is tracked by numerous agencies. The Automatic Identification System (AIS) tracks vessels on the open oceans and ports. In Europe, The Automatic Transmitter Identification System (ATIS) tracks inland waterways. In the United States, information on the location of inland vessels is maintained by the U.S. Corps of Engineers. These agencies maintain websites with the current location of a vessel.
"The Automatic Identification System (AIS) is an automatic tracking system used on ships and by vessel traffic services (VTS) for identifying and locating vessels by electronically exchanging data with other nearby ships, AIS base stations, and satellites. When satellites are used to detect AIS signatures then the term Satellite-AIS (S-AIS) is used. AIS information supplements marine radar, which continues to be the primary method of collision avoidance for water transport."(1)
"The Automatic Transmitter Identification System (ATIS) is a marine VHF radio system used and mandated on navigable inland waterways in Europe for identifying the ship or vessel that made a radio transmission. The identity of the vessel is sent digitally immediately after the ship's radio operator has finished talking and releases their transceiver's push-to-talk button. A short post-transmission message is sent by the radio with the vessel identity and is in the form of an encoded call sign or Maritime Mobile Service Identity, starting with number '9' and the three country-specific maritime identification digits."(1)
Inland waterways in the United States are supported by maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who also monitor the traffic. Their "earliest Civil Works mission, dating to Federal laws in 1824 authorized the Corps to improve safety on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers and several ports. Today, the Corps maintains more than 12,000 miles (19,000 km) of inland waterways and operates 235 locks. These waterways—a system of rivers, lakes and coastal bays improved for commercial and recreational transportation—carry about 1/6 of the nation's inter-city freight, at a cost per ton-mile about 1/2 that of rail or 1/10 that of trucks. USACE also maintains 300 commercial harbors, through which pass 2,000,000,000 short tons (1.8×109 metric tons) of cargo a year, and more than 600 smaller harbors."(1)
Before a passenger ship sets sail, an intended schedule is posted. This intended schedule would be entered into SAP Event Management as Expected Events. Data would be retrieved from the appropriate site containing location information on the vessel as it travels on its journey and used to update the information in SAP EM, most likely matching on longitude and latitude coordinates. When the vessel's actual event time and location did not match its expected time and location, an alert would be activated that could send an email, fax, report, text page, etc., to designated recipient(s) of the delay. This comparison of expected vs. actual is SAP Event Management primary purpose; the magic does not stop there. In addition to its monitoring capability it provides a vast number of response options for reacting to the results.
SAP Event Management is one of the today's best kept secrets.
(1) Wikipedia.
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