How it all began

During his training period as apprentice Jörg Schwinning gathered first experience with programming. With the programmable calculator Texas Instruments TI 60 which he purchased during shore leave in New York, 1978,  he wrote programs for terrestrial and celestial navigation. While education at the nautical academy, Schwinning laid the basis for further programming activities by attending programming courses. From its first wages as third mate, he bought an Apple II computer, which accompanied him on his voayges on general cargo and container vessels. During this time, he developed various programs in Apple BASIC about the shipboard administration. It varies from an inventory control system of the medicine chest with datecode management and automated ordering to sea charts management, a database for dangerous goods, administration of voyages and waypoints, great circle navigation up to the complexibility of a stability calculation.  All sotware was used in the daily shipboard routine.

Professional Software Development

During consultancy projects for the introduction of the ISM Code in 1995, Schwinning noted that many shipping companies abstained from software because of the high costs. Thus, a maintenance management system costs more than 14,000 DM per ship. Software needs to be affordable allowing owners to use them in practice. This situation led to the idea to develop software that meet the minimum requirements and therefore are affordable.

The company SeaShore Systems was founded .

In co-operation with two shipowners Schwinning developed the maintenance system MaSy. Developing MaSy Schwinning closely orientated at the requirements of the ISM Code to allow easy use and quick crew training. Meanwhile MaSy was sold to more than 350 ships and has replacedhuge and complex systems in some shipping companies. Some vessels using MaSy have got the class notation "planned maintenance".

In course of time, the requirement arises to transfer data from ship to the shorebased office. Therefore, some products consist of a shipbaord and a shorebased module. The data transfer is reduced to an absolute minimum.