TugOS: The Operating System for Harbor Towage and Pilotage

Two tugs booked for the same vessel movement isn't a rare mistake when dispatch runs on a whiteboard and a VHF radio — it's a matter of time. Neither tool has any concept of a bollard-pull rating, a compulsory-tug floor, or which tug is already committed to a job on the other side of the harbor. The conflict doesn't surface until two crews are already underway, and by then it's an operational scramble, not a planning problem.

TugOS is the OS Series' system for harbor towage and pilotage in the Philippines — built by Xamun and delivered by BlastAsia — and it's purpose-built for the operator caught between a heavyweight ERP that's never heard of a bollard-pull rating and a spreadsheet-and-radio setup that falls apart the moment two jobs collide.

One Platform From Booking to ERP

TugOS runs the full operation as one connected system: booking, dispatch, execution, billing, and ERP posting, rather than a jobs spreadsheet bolted onto a generic accounting tool. Booking and assisted intake lets customers self-book with an indicative tariff on the spot, while AI-assisted email intake turns an incoming request into a draft order for the booking desk — with everything a human confirms before it moves forward.

Advisory dispatch planning is where the operational judgment actually lives: an allocation matrix reads the vessel and recommends tug count and minimum bollard pull, then filters the fleet down to tugs that are available, suitable, and in the right port. The fleet scheduler lays every tug and captain on a single Gantt timeline, with automatic conflict detection the moment a job overlaps a maintenance or bunkering window — catching the double-booking before it becomes a harbor-side scramble, not after.

Seeing the Whole Harbor at Once

Live tracking and geofencing fuses GPS tug positions with AIS ship targets on one operations map, with a geofence transit log that can auto-confirm a vessel's arrival in port — giving a duty dispatcher the entire harbor in view rather than a radio call's worth of information at a time. Captain and pilot field apps put the dispatch ticket, a live execution clock, and the Statement of Facts directly in a captain's hands, offline-capable so a job in a dead zone mid-channel keeps recording and syncs the moment signal returns.

Billing That Traces Back to a Stamped Rate, Not a Moving Target

Versioned tariff rate cards tier rates by boat type, gross-tonnage band, and movement, with per-customer negotiated cards and port-specific compulsory-tug floors — every version stamped for audit. When a job closes, SoF-driven billingrates the signed Statement of Facts against the exact rate-card version that was stamped at booking — not whatever the rate happens to be today — producing a billing draft for one-click approval and posting to ERP, SAP S/4HANA out of the box, with idempotency and dead-letter handling so a resubmitted invoice never posts twice.

Compliance Wired Into the Workflow, Not Bolted On

Maintenance, bunkering, and certificate tracking runs an owned-tug asset database with service plans and Certificate-of-Inspection and bollard-pull cert tracking, so nothing sails on an expired certificate. Compliance and governance wires in Philippine Ports Authority compulsory-tug floors and MARINA certificate roster checks directly into dispatch — an under-tugged movement or an expired licence gets stopped before it sails, not flagged in a report afterward — alongside affiliate subcontracting support, role-based access, and an immutable audit ledger.

A Sibling System, a Different Market

TugOS covers the same operational category as MarshaOS — harbor towage and pilotage dispatch and billing — but for a different market with a different regulatory backbone. Where MarshaOS was built and proven for Gulf ports against AED billing, Hijri calendars, and Arabic RTL interfaces, TugOS is built and proven for Philippine harbors against PPA compulsory-tug floors, MARINA certificate compliance, and the Data Privacy Act (RA 10173). Both run on the same underlying design principle — a real dispatch and billing operating system, not a generic ERP force-fit — configured for the regulatory reality of the market each one launched in.

Delivered Through BlastAsia's Engagement Models

TugOS is built by Xamun through the Xamun Software Factory and delivered by BlastAsia through its Turnkey or xDDengagement models, with port, tariff, and fleet configuration scoped as part of onboarding — live in a quarter rather than the multi-year systems-integration saga a generic ERP rollout would require.

For tugboat companies, pilotage associations, and integrated harbor-service providers still running dispatch on a whiteboard and a radio, TugOS is built to be operations-grade without an enterprise budget or a dedicated IT department behind it.

If you're running towage or pilotage operations in a Philippine harbor and want to see how TugOS handles your specific fleet and ports, let's talk through your operation.