TL;DR: TMA Bulk runs Handymax bulk carriers from Hamburg across an unusual mix of chartered tonnage, a pool and a parcelling business that combines multiple cargoes into single voyages. It has used ZeroNorth Voyage Optimisation for three years, with the operator, not an external routing desk, running the optimisation. The clearest illustration: a vessel sailing from Ontario was originally routed via the Cape of Good Hope, and the team tested Panama instead using live congestion, timing and canal-fee data. Panama proved commercially better, and the vessel was re-routed with the port rotation adjusted within hours rather than days.
Who TMA Bulk are
TMA Bulk operates from Hamburg with a young, commercially minded team focused on Handymax bulk carriers. It runs a mix of chartered and operated vessels, manages a pool, and runs a parcelling business that assembles multiple cargoes into single voyages. That combination of parcelling, pool management and commercial operation is unusual in dry bulk, and it demands unusually tight coordination between operations, commercial and technical teams.
Varun Kumar, Ship Performance and Efficiency Manager, works across those boundaries. “I look at the full commercial and operational chain,” he says. “From the moment a voyage is fixed, through cargo preparation and execution, to claims and feedback, it’s all connected. Each step influences efficiency.”
Why they call it commercial optimisation, not fuel optimisation
For Varun, efficiency is not a fuel metric. “I wouldn’t really call it fuel optimisation anymore,” he says. “It’s commercial optimisation. It’s about understanding how every choice, how much cargo we lift, how we route the vessel, how we manage delays or claims, affects the commercial outcome.”
That framing changed how the company treats regulation. “Environmental regulations made companies start looking at their operations more closely,” he explains. “The surprising result is that compliance actually improves business. Once you identify what was being left as waste, in time, fuel, or process, it becomes clear that optimisation is not a cost. It can finance itself.”
This is the same argument the mechanism sits on: routing and speed decisions are commercial decisions because they set fuel spend, Charter Party exposure and carbon cost simultaneously. See how voyage optimisation reduces fuel, emissions and risk for how the levers combine.
Keeping the expertise in-house
TMA Bulk has worked with ZeroNorth for three years. The deciding factor was who does the optimising.
“We wanted a system that lets us do the optimisation ourselves,” Varun says. “The software is the expert. We generate the plan, the master reviews it from a safety perspective, and together we decide. That’s how you keep the knowledge with the operator rather than outsourcing it.”
“ZeroNorth stood out because it was built for people who are making day-to-day decisions. Other systems still depend on external routing or weather experts. Here, the operator has control, and that’s what makes it practical.”
That distinction, in-house optimisation versus an external advisory service, is one of the main forks in the market. The buyer’s guide to voyage optimisation platforms sets out where each model fits.
The Ontario voyage: Cape or Panama
The clearest example is a routing decision that would normally never have been re-opened.
A vessel departing Ontario had been routed around the Cape of Good Hope. “That’s the traditional route,” Varun says. “But we used the optimisation system to test an alternative through the Panama Canal. With updated data on congestion, timing, and canal fees, we found that Panama made better commercial sense. Within a few hours, we re-routed the vessel, adjusted the port rotation, and changed the entire voyage plan. Without the system, that process would have taken days.”
Two things make this a useful proof point rather than an anecdote. First, the decision spanned legs: changing the canal changed the port rotation, which is sequential rather than leg-by-leg planning. Second, the constraint that used to prevent this kind of re-evaluation was time, not knowledge. Reducing the analysis from days to hours is what makes the option real.
Where they are heading
“With better data, you can constantly refine how you trade and operate,” Varun says. “That’s the direction we’re going in, more interaction, more integration between data and decisions. Optimisation should be as intuitive as using Google Maps.”
“The best outcome is when the operator and the master have a direct, informed conversation about what’s best for the voyage. When the people making the decisions have the right tools, optimisation becomes a natural part of good seamanship and good business.”
The bottom line
TMA Bulk’s argument is that voyage optimisation earns its place not as a fuel tool but as a commercial one, and that it works best when the operator runs it rather than outsourcing the judgement. Book a demo to see ZeroNorth Voyage Optimisation in an operator-led workflow.
.png)
