Material | Navatom

Benefits

Why Material?

Key advantages of using Material as part of the Navatom integrated ship management platform.

One Catalog for Your Entire Fleet

Standardize materials across all vessels and offices. When everyone uses the same part numbers, procurement gets faster, inventory transfers get simpler, and reporting finally tells the truth.

Zero-Effort Compliance

Built-in violation detection, complete audit trails, and structural edit protection mean your material master is always audit-ready — ISM, ISO, TMSA, or class society inspections.

Procurement Intelligence

With multi-supplier part numbers, price history analytics, and per-location stock planning, your purchasing team makes faster, better-informed buying decisions.

Reduced Manual Data Entry

Variant auto-generation, attribute inheritance, conversion auto-discovery, and standard catalog imports eliminate the repetitive work that slows your team down.

Right Part, Right Ship, Right Time

Equipment-material linkages and per-vessel stock coverage planning ensure critical spares are where they need to be — before the breakdown happens.

Scales with Your Fleet

Server-side pagination, cloud synchronization, and secure company data isolation mean the system performs the same whether you manage 5 vessels or 500.

Navatom Material is the single source of truth for every material your fleet touches — from critical engine spares to everyday consumables. It replaces scattered spreadsheets and disconnected part lists with a unified, cloud-synchronized material master that every department can rely on.

Built around a powerful three-tier catalog architecture with infinitely nestable categories, Material lets you mirror your exact classification structure — no compromises. Define behavioral types, track in up to five inventory dimensions, and manage multi-unit conversions without ever leaving the module.

Whether you are standardizing part catalogs across 5 vessels or 500, Material gives your procurement, technical, and supply chain teams a shared language — so the right part reaches the right ship at the right time.

Capabilities

Key Features

Discover how Navatom Material helps ship managers work faster and stay compliant with powerful, easy-to-use tools.

Three-Tier Catalog Architecture

Organize your entire material universe with a Catalog → Category Group → Category hierarchy that supports unlimited nesting depth. Mirror your company's exact classification structure — from broad equipment families down to the most specific sub-component types.

Catalogs carry their own lifecycle (Draft, Active, Inactive, Deprecated), location restrictions, and procurement policies. Lock a catalog to specific warehouses or vessels, enforce material type requirements, and control who can modify what — all from a single, intuitive management screen.

Category → Group → Material hierarchy Drag-and-drop reorganization Unlimited nesting depth Bulk classification tools

Behavioral Material Types

Not all materials behave the same way. Define material types with five behavioral flags — Purchasable, Stockable, Valuated, Salable, and Manufacturable — and let the system adapt automatically. Toggle "Purchasable" off, and procurement fields disappear system-wide. Toggle "Stockable" on, and inventory tracking activates instantly.

Changes cascade to every material of that type in real time. One toggle, thousands of materials updated — no migration scripts, no manual cleanup.

Consumable, Spare Part, Equipment types
Type-driven field visibility
Automatic validation rules
Custom type definitions

Master/Variant Product Modeling

Create a single master material, define dimension groups like Size, Color, or Grade, and generate every possible variant in one click. Navatom computes every possible combination — turning hours of manual data entry into seconds.

Variants inherit their master's core properties while maintaining their own identity, part numbers, and stock records. Share attributes and physical dimensions across variants, or let each stand alone. The choice is yours.

Parent-child material relationships
Shared base attributes
Variant-specific overrides
Inheritance-based defaults

Dynamic Custom Attributes

Every industry classifies materials differently. Build your own data model with typed attributes — text, numbers, decimals, dates, booleans, or predefined pick lists. Assign attribute types at the category level and let inheritance propagate them automatically down the tree.

Group related attributes together for clean, organized editing. Define numeric ranges, allow multiple values, and keep your material data structured and queryable — not buried in free-text description fields.

User-defined field creation
Type-safe value storage
Filterable in search & reports
No schema changes required

Multi-Unit Intelligence

Buy in pallets, store in boxes, sell in pieces — Navatom handles the math. Assign separate units of measure for Inventory, Purchase, and Sales, and define bidirectional conversion factors between them.

When you set a unit, the system automatically searches for known conversions and applies them. No manual factor entry for standard conversions. And when you need custom ratios, adding them takes a single form — both directions are created simultaneously.

Base + alternate unit support
Automatic conversion factors
Unit-aware calculations
Purchase vs stock unit mapping

Five-Dimension Inventory Tracking

Track inventory with the precision your operation demands. Enable up to five tracking dimensions per material — Space, Status, Batch, Serial Number, and Owner — and combine them freely for full traceability.

Need simple location tracking for consumables? Enable Space only. Need full serial traceability for safety-critical spares? Stack Serial on top of Space and Status. Each material gets exactly the tracking depth it requires — no more, no less.

Location, Batch, Serial dimensions
Owner & Status tracking
Per-material dimension config
Cross-dimension reporting

Batch Lifecycle Management

When batch tracking is enabled, Navatom unlocks a complete batch lifecycle: configure manufacturing dates, shelf life periods, best-before dates, and expiry windows. Monitor aging across your fleet and ensure no expired material ever reaches a work order.

Batch properties are fully configurable per material — enable only the dates that matter for each product type, and let the system enforce the rest.

Expiry date tracking per batch
Batch-level status control
Manufacturer lot references
Full batch history timeline

Per-Location Stock Planning

Configure replenishment parameters for every warehouse, vessel, and storage location independently. Set minimum, optimal, and maximum stock levels. Assign criticality ratings and valuation categories. Choose MRP types and lot sizing procedures.

Fine-tune order modifiers — minimum and maximum order quantities, fixed lot sizes, and rounding multiples. Define planned delivery lead times, goods receipt processing days, and over/under delivery tolerances. Everything your planners need to make smarter restocking decisions.

Min/max/reorder per location
Visual stock level indicators
Automatic replenishment alerts
Location-specific lead times

Equipment-Material Linkage

Bridge the gap between maintenance and supply chain. Link materials directly to vessel equipment from the Planned Maintenance System, so your team can instantly answer "what spares does this engine need?" or "which vessels use this bearing?"

Relationships are vessel-aware — the same material can be linked to different equipment on different ships, with each relationship tracked independently.

Material-to-equipment mapping
Where-used analysis
BOM-driven consumption
Cross-reference search

Multi-Supplier Part Numbers

Store part numbers from every supplier alongside your internal material code. Each material can carry unlimited external part numbers with verified supplier company references — making RFQ creation faster and cross-referencing effortless.

When procurement needs to source a part, every supplier's catalog number is already at their fingertips. No more digging through emails or supplier portals.

Multiple supplier catalogs per item
Preferred supplier ranking
Price comparison across suppliers
Automatic part number mapping

Standard Catalog Distribution

Start with a head start. Access centrally maintained, industry-standard material catalogs managed by Navatom. Import them into your company with a single request — instantly populating thousands of pre-classified, ready-to-use materials.

Imported catalogs are read-only to preserve their integrity, but you can build on top of them with your own categories, attributes, and customizations. Standardization without rigidity.

Centralized catalog publishing
Fleet-wide material sync
Vessel-specific overrides
Catalog version management

Interactive Price Analytics

Track material pricing trends with an interactive chart showing unit prices over time, five-period moving averages, and statistical overlays for average, minimum, and maximum prices. Spot cost anomalies and supplier pricing shifts before they impact your budget.

Every data point links back to the original transaction — vendor, quantity, currency, and goods receipt reference — giving your procurement team full context behind every price movement.

Price trend visualizations
Supplier comparison charts
Cost variance analysis
Historical price tracking

Real-Time On-Hand Visibility

See current stock quantities broken down by every enabled tracking dimension — location, space, batch, serial number, status, and owner — all in a single, expandable grid. Drill into any row to see the full detail behind the number.

The on-hand view adapts dynamically to each material's tracking configuration. Batch-tracked materials show batch columns; serial-tracked materials show serial columns. No clutter, no irrelevant data — just the information your team needs.

Live stock levels across fleet
Multi-location aggregation
Dimension-filtered views
Exportable inventory snapshots

Smart Violation Detection

A continuous compliance engine monitors every material for configuration gaps — missing units, broken conversions, inactive categories, incompatible types, and more. Violations surface as actionable alerts directly on the material detail page.

Not every violation needs immediate action. Consciously acknowledge known gaps by muting violations — they stay tracked but stop interrupting your workflow. Unmute them anytime when you are ready to resolve.

Configurable validation rules
Real-time constraint checking
Violation severity levels
Auto-suggested corrections

Transaction-Aware Structural Protection

Once a material has real inventory movements, Navatom automatically locks structural fields — type, category, units of measure, and tracking dimensions. Your operational data stays consistent, even as your team continues refining the material master.

Basic edits like name, description, and part number remain open. Only the changes that could break existing transaction history are protected — the right balance between flexibility and data integrity.

Safe deletion checks
Referential integrity guards
Active transaction detection
Cascade impact preview

Visual Material Gallery

Upload product images with a built-in carousel viewer, full-size lightbox, and multi-image batch upload. Give your team — from warehouse operators to purchasing agents — a clear visual reference for every material in the catalog.

No more guessing whether "Gasket Type B-14" is the red one or the blue one. A picture is worth a thousand part numbers.

Multi-image per material
Image zoom & compare
Drag-and-drop upload
Gallery thumbnail grid

Complete Audit Trail

Every change to every material is recorded with full attribution — who changed what, when, and to what value. From name edits to category reassignments, from status transitions to attribute updates, the complete event history is always one click away.

Built for regulated industries where traceability is not optional. ISM, ISO, and class society auditors will find a clean, chronological record of every material master change.

Immutable change log
Full user attribution
Before/after snapshots
Exportable audit reports

Configurable Dashboards & KPIs

Build custom dashboards with widgets tailored to your material management priorities. Monitor catalog completeness, stock coverage health, violation trends, and material master quality metrics from a single screen.

Share dashboard configurations across your team so everyone — from the Superintendent to the Purchasing Manager — sees the KPIs that matter to their role.

Per-role widget layouts
Real-time metric cards
Customizable dashboard grids
Drill-down from KPI to detail

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Material answered.

How many materials can the system handle? +

There is no practical limit. The Material module uses server-side pagination and aggregation, so even catalogs with hundreds of thousands of materials load instantly.

Your browser never holds the full dataset in memory.

Can I import existing material catalogs from spreadsheets? +

Yes. Navatom supports catalog import workflows and also provides centrally maintained standard catalogs that you can import with a single request.

For custom imports from Excel or CSV, contact your Navatom implementation team.

What happens if I change a material type after inventory transactions exist? +

Navatom protects your data integrity. Once a material has real inventory movements, structural fields like type, category, units of measure, and tracking dimensions are automatically locked.

Basic edits like name and description remain open.

Is the material catalog shared between office and vessels? +

Yes. The material master is cloud-synchronized across all deployment contexts — office, ship, and supplier portal.

Changes made at the office propagate to vessels, and on-hand data from vessels is visible at the office in real time.

Can different vessels have different stock level requirements for the same material? +

Absolutely. The Coverage feature lets you set independent minimum, optimal, and maximum stock levels for every material at every location.

A tanker and a bulk carrier can have completely different stock planning parameters for the same spare part.

Does Material integrate with other Navatom modules? +

Material is deeply integrated with Inventory (stock tracking and transactions), Procurement (purchase orders and supplier management), PMS (equipment-material linkages), and Finance (material valuation). It serves as the shared material master for the entire platform.