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Higman Marine Services Uses Vitrium Security to Ensure Its Staff has Up to Date Safety Manuals
By Santiago Henderson | March 15, 2018
“We now can ensure that employees working on boats and in the office have the latest version by providing them the most recent copy of all digital files, additionally, we can restrict the number of IP addresses per user so that the file cannot be shared with anyone outside of our company. Vitrium Security offers us peace of mind with its strong security, but also ease of use with its flexible DRM controls.”
- Amy Keppes, Compliance and Vetting Manager
Company Overview
Higman Marine Services is a leading provider of inland marine transportation services for bulk liquid petroleum and chemical cargoes. With an extensive history dating back to 1917, Higman operates one of the youngest and most modern fleets in the industry, consisting of over 90 owned and operated vessels.
Key Challenges
Keeping Internal documents secured and updated
Higman Marine Services needed a way to distribute policy and procedure manuals of the company’s Safety Management System to employees working on vessels as well as office staff. The documents contain intellectual property that is updated quarterly and crucial to the company’s operations. “All of our policies and procedures were hard copies and changes and revisions were hard to get out to the employees working on boats,” says Amy Keppes, Compliance and Vetting Manager. “Without a content security system in place, the documents were at risk and lacking any tracking mechanism to ensure staff had access to the latest updated versions of the manuals.”
The challenge Higman Marine Services faced was two-fold: to protect safety management intellectual property, and to effectively replace old version of policy and procedure manuals with the new versions as they were released.
The Solution – Vitrium Security
Robust Security that travels with safety policy and procedure files
When looking for a way to solve its document security and replacement challenges, the team at Higman Marine Services found the ideal solution in Vitrium Security. By delivering security layers that travel with the file, such as encryption, password protection, dynamic watermarks, and the ability to revoke access to files remotely, Vitrium Security empowered Higman Marine Services to protect the intellectual property contained in the Safety Management Systems’ procedure manuals.
In addition, since choosing Vitrium Security as its Content Security Platform in 2014, Higman Marine Services is able to ensure that only the latest version of policy and procedure manuals is available to its 200+ employees. Vitrium’s version control functionality lets Higman Marine Services remotely replace old versions of the documents with the latest updated version, ensuring that all employees are accessing and working from the same content.
The Result
Getting the latest version of manuals out onto the vessels
With the new Content Security and Digital Rights Management (DRM) system in place, Higman Marine Services is able to achieve its ultimate goal of file protection as well as ensuring that employees are able to access, download, and view the latest version of policy and procedure manuals. Members of the Compliance and Vetting Team at Higman Marine Services simply upload the Safety Management System policy and procedure manuals to Vitrium Security, apply security settings and controls such as device and browser limits, printing and copying restrictions, and web viewer access, and upload the Secure PDF and Secure Web Links to the company’s intranet.
From there, employees can download and access the latest version of these crucial documents while the company’s intellectual property is protected no matter where the files go. “We now can ensure that employees working on boats and in the office have the latest version by providing them the most recent copy of all digital files,” says Amy Keppes, “additionally, we can restrict the number of IP addresses per user so that the file cannot be shared with anyone outside of our company. Vitrium Security offers us peace of mind with its strong security, but also ease of use with its flexible DRM controls.”
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