Maritime Shipping Platforms: Modernizing Global Logistics via Visual Capture

The global supply chain is currently anchored by software written during the Clinton administration. While the physical world of logistics has moved toward automation, IoT-enabled containers, and autonomous vessels, the terminal operating systems (TOS) and freight forwarding portals managing them are often brittle, undocumented monoliths. When these systems fail, the cost isn't just measured in developer hours—it’s measured in port congestion, spoiled cargo, and millions of dollars in demurrage fees.

Maritime shipping platforms modernizing their infrastructure face a unique "legacy trap": the systems are too critical to shut down, yet too complex to document. With a global technical debt mountain reaching $3.6 trillion, the maritime sector is one of the largest contributors. The traditional path—manual rewrites—is a death march.

TL;DR: Maritime logistics relies on aging, undocumented legacy UIs that hinder operational efficiency. Manual modernization takes 18-24 months and fails 70% of the time. Replay introduces Visual Reverse Engineering, allowing teams to record legacy workflows and automatically generate documented React components, reducing modernization timelines from years to weeks.

The High Cost of the "Rip and Replace" Fallacy#

Industry experts recommend moving away from the "big bang" rewrite model. According to Replay’s analysis, 70% of legacy rewrites in the logistics sector fail or significantly exceed their original timelines. The primary reason is a lack of institutional knowledge: 67% of legacy maritime systems lack any form of up-to-date documentation.

When an enterprise attempts maritime shipping platforms modernizing projects through manual discovery, they spend an average of 40 hours per screen just to understand the business logic and UI state. In a platform with 500+ screens—common in port management—that’s 20,000 man-hours before a single line of production-ready React is written.

Video-to-code is the process of capturing real user interactions with legacy software and using AI-driven visual analysis to output structured, documented frontend code.

By using Replay, maritime enterprises can bypass the discovery phase. Instead of interviewing retired COBOL programmers to understand how a container manifest screen calculates weight distribution, developers simply record a user performing the task. Replay’s Visual Reverse Engineering engine then converts that recording into a clean, modular React component library.

Why Maritime Shipping Platforms Modernizing Efforts Fail Without Visual Capture#

The maritime industry operates in a "high-stakes, low-latency" environment. A delay in updating a vessel's berthing status can cascade into a week of logistical nightmares. Traditional modernization fails because it treats the UI as a static set of pixels rather than a complex state machine.

The Documentation Vacuum#

Most maritime software was built for IE6 or as Java applets. The source code is often lost, or the original vendors have long since been acquired. This creates a "black box" where the UI is the only source of truth for the business logic.

The Complexity of Real-Time Data#

Maritime platforms handle massive streams of AIS (Automatic Identification System) data, crane telemetry, and EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) feeds. Mapping these to a modern frontend manually is prone to error.

The Comparison: Manual vs. Replay-Driven Modernization#

Implementing Visual Reverse Engineering in Logistics#

To understand how maritime shipping platforms modernizing their stack actually works in practice, let's look at the technical implementation. Suppose we are modernizing a legacy "Vessel Schedule" screen. In the old system, this is a dense, non-responsive table with nested logic for cargo priority.

Using Replay, a business analyst records the workflow of assigning a berth to an incoming Maersk vessel. Replay captures the DOM state, the CSS styles, and the underlying data structures.

Step 1: Generating the Component Architecture#

Replay’s AI Automation Suite identifies recurring patterns—like a "Container Status Badge" or a "Port Grid"—and promotes them to a centralized Design System. Below is an example of the TypeScript code Replay generates for a modernized vessel tracking component.

typescript
// Generated by Replay Visual Reverse Engineering
import React from 'react';
import { Badge, StatusIcon } from '../design-system';

interface VesselManifestProps {
  vesselId: string;
  imoNumber: number;
  status: 'In Transit' | 'Berth' | 'Anchorage';
  cargoLoad: number; // Percentage
  eta: string;
}

export const VesselStatusCard: React.FC<VesselManifestProps> = ({
  vesselId,
  imoNumber,
  status,
  cargoLoad,
  eta
}) => {
  return (
    <div className="p-4 border rounded-lg bg-white shadow-sm hover:shadow-md transition-shadow">
      <div className="flex justify-between items-center mb-2">
        <h3 className="text-lg font-bold text-slate-900">{vesselId}</h3>
        <Badge variant={status === 'In Transit' ? 'success' : 'warning'}>
          {status}
        </Badge>
      </div>
      <div className="grid grid-cols-2 gap-4 text-sm text-slate-600">
        <div>
          <span className="block font-semibold">IMO Number:</span>
          {imoNumber}
        </div>
        <div>
          <span className="block font-semibold">ETA:</span>
          {new Date(eta).toLocaleDateString()}
        </div>
      </div>
      <div className="mt-4">
        <div className="flex justify-between mb-1 text-xs">
          <span>Cargo Load</span>
          <span>{cargoLoad}%</span>
        </div>
        <div className="w-full bg-slate-200 h-2 rounded-full">
          <div 
            className="bg-blue-600 h-2 rounded-full" 
            style={{ width: `${cargoLoad}%` }}
          />
        </div>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
};

This code isn't just a "guess." It is a 1:1 functional equivalent of the legacy UI logic, extracted through visual capture and mapped to modern Tailwind CSS and React patterns.

Building a Resilient Maritime Design System#

A major hurdle for maritime shipping platforms modernizing is the lack of design consistency. Different modules of a port management system might have been built ten years apart by different vendors.

Visual Reverse Engineering allows teams to build a "Library" (Design System) from the existing software. Replay scans the recordings across the entire platform to find every instance of a "Submit" button, a "Date Picker," or a "Modal."

A Design System is a centralized repository of reusable UI components and brand guidelines that ensures consistency across all digital products.

By standardizing these components, the engineering team can focus on the complex backend integrations—like connecting to a new blockchain-based Bill of Lading service—rather than fighting with CSS for the hundredth time.

Learn more about building Design Systems from legacy code

Handling Real-Time Telemetry Data#

Modern maritime platforms require real-time updates. Legacy systems often rely on manual refreshes or archaic polling. When modernizing, we can wrap the Replay-generated components in React Query or SWR to handle live AIS data streams.

typescript
// Modernizing a legacy polling hook to a real-time stream
import { useQuery } from '@tanstack/react-query';
import { fetchVesselLocation } from '../api/maritime-api';

export const useVesselTracking = (vesselId: string) => {
  return useQuery({
    queryKey: ['vessel-location', vesselId],
    queryFn: () => fetchVesselLocation(vesselId),
    refetchInterval: 5000, // Modernizing the 30-second legacy lag to 5-second updates
    staleTime: 2000,
  });
};

The "Flows" Architecture: Mapping the Port Ecosystem#

In maritime logistics, a "Flow" is a sequence of events: Arrival -> Customs Clearance -> Unloading -> Gate Out. In legacy systems, these flows are often hard-coded into the UI.

Replay’s "Flows" feature allows architects to see the entire application map. By recording these sequences, Replay creates a visual blueprint of the system's architecture. This is vital for maritime shipping platforms modernizing because it identifies dead code and redundant workflows that can be eliminated in the new React-based version.

According to Replay's analysis, the average enterprise logistics platform contains 25% "ghost features"—functionality that is no longer used but still maintained at a high cost. Visual capture identifies these immediately, allowing teams to prune the scope of the modernization project.

Security and Compliance in Regulated Waters#

Maritime shipping is a critical infrastructure sector, often subject to strict government regulations and international maritime law. Modernization cannot happen in a public cloud if it exposes sensitive manifest data.

Replay is built for these regulated environments. With SOC2 compliance, HIPAA-readiness, and an on-premise deployment option, maritime organizations can modernize their platforms without their data ever leaving their secure perimeter. This is a significant advantage over generic AI coding assistants that require code to be sent to third-party LLMs.

Discover how Replay handles security for enterprise modernization

The Roadmap to Modernization: From 18 Months to 18 Days#

The traditional 18-month timeline for maritime shipping platforms modernizing is a relic of the manual era. By leveraging Replay, the roadmap changes drastically:

1. •Week 1: Visual Capture. Record all mission-critical workflows in the legacy TOS or Freight portal.
2. •Week 2: Component Extraction. Use Replay’s Library to automatically generate a React Design System from the recordings.
3. •Week 3: Blueprinting. Map the application flows and identify high-priority screens for the first release.
4. •Week 4: Automated Code Generation. Use the AI Automation Suite to generate the first 50-100 screens in React.
5. •Week 5+: Integration and Deployment. Connect the new frontend to existing APIs and begin a phased rollout.

This accelerated timeline is how modern logistics giants are staying ahead of the competition. They aren't rewriting; they are transpiling their institutional knowledge into a modern stack.

Case Study: Modernizing a Global Carrier’s Booking Portal#

A top-five global carrier faced a crisis: their customer-facing booking portal was so outdated that freight forwarders were switching to "digital-native" competitors. The estimated manual rewrite time was 22 months, with a projected cost of $4.5 million.

By utilizing maritime shipping platforms modernizing strategies powered by Replay, the carrier recorded the existing booking, tracking, and invoicing flows. Replay generated a complete React-based UI in just 6 weeks. The result was a 70% reduction in time-to-market and a platform that was fully responsive, accessible, and ready for mobile deployment—something the legacy system could never achieve.

Frequently Asked Questions#

How does Replay handle complex business logic hidden in legacy UIs?#

Replay doesn't just "take a screenshot." It captures the underlying state and data structures during a user session. By observing how the UI changes in response to specific data inputs (like a container weight exceeding a limit), Replay’s AI can infer the business logic and document it within the generated React components.

Can Replay work with mainframe-backed green-screen applications?#

Yes. If the legacy application can be rendered in a browser (even via a terminal emulator or Citrix web portal), Replay can record the visual output and convert those interactions into modern web components. This is essential for maritime shipping platforms modernizing from 30-year-old mainframe systems.

Does the generated code require significant manual cleanup?#

Replay generates clean, human-readable TypeScript and React code that follows modern best practices. While a developer will still need to hook up the final API endpoints, the "grunt work" of building the UI, styling the components, and managing local state is 90% complete. Replay reduces the manual effort from 40 hours per screen to approximately 4 hours.

Is Replay compatible with existing Design Systems?#

Absolutely. If your organization already has a modern Design System (e.g., based on MUI or Radix), you can train Replay’s Blueprints to use your existing components as the output target. This ensures that the modernized maritime platform perfectly matches your corporate brand from day one.

The Future of Maritime Software#

The shipping industry can no longer afford to be held back by its software. As we move toward a world of "smart ports" and autonomous shipping, the interface between humans and machines must be fluid, fast, and documented. Maritime shipping platforms modernizing today are not just updating their look; they are securing their place in the future of global trade.

By moving from manual discovery to Visual Reverse Engineering, enterprises can finally shed the weight of $3.6 trillion in technical debt. The era of the 18-month rewrite is over. The era of the 18-day modernization has begun.

Ready to modernize without rewriting? Book a pilot with Replay