Digitalization is transforming organizations from being reactive to proactive in areas such as safety and safety reporting. There is massive untapped potential for the shipping industry to improve its operational efficiency through harnessing ship to shore data flows that can have a positive impact on commercial, environmental and safety performance reporting.
In recent years, we have seen a variety of digital solutions to emerge, with the goal of providing more effective and efficient communication but at the same time of improving safety as well. These digital solutions improve overall operational efficiency, safety, and crew welfare. Furthermore, with access to modern technology on the rise, piracy attacks can become less frequent because of the sharing of data from ship to shore. Marine safety and security can also be enhanced by video surveillance systems that transmit important ‘real time’ information such as speed, course, location and fuel levels to the relevant authorities
Key drivers and barriers towards digitalization
Undeniably, COVID-19 has been a “universal disruptor and catalyst for digital transformation”, Inmarsat has noted. Even before the pandemic, shipping companies had realized that it is vital to differentiate from competitors and raise their competitiveness.
Shipping companies are proceeding with digitalization to reduce costs, raise competitiveness and grasp customers’ needs. According to a research conducted by Inmarsat and Lloyd’s List in May 2020, cost reduction, operational efficiencies and regulatory compliance are the top three drivers for a clear acceleration in digitalization. Although the research presented encouraging findings on digital adoption, owners and managers said that ‘lack of or little evidence of value for money’ can be a key challenge to implementation. Namely, the research unveiled a rapidly increasing need for extracting data off a vessel in real-time as opposed to using more manual methods, such as noon reports. In addition, those planning to deploy more fleet and vessel performance solutions were interested in deploying fuel optimization and fuel monitoring applications in the next couple years.
Digital applications that support operational efficiency
Due to COVID-19 pandemic, crew training and management appear as the most important digital applications for fleet-wide adoption among owner/ manager respondents with a focus on crew matters. Areas like vessel performance, weather routing, machinery monitoring, etc. have greatly benefited, resulting in more efficient and also safer vessel operations. Safety reporting is also gaining benefits from these developments, as more and more processes are being digitized and becoming automated.
Solutions for crew shift and rest hour management for the on-board crew, surveillance and accidents tracking, as well as e-health services are more and more entering into the practices of ship operators, thus improving standards in safety and crew welfare, said Panos Theodossopoulos, Chief Digital Officer, OCEANKING Technical & trading S.A. In essence, such solutions allow shore management to have a better understanding of what actually happens on board a vessel on a day-to-basis and whether safety management systems are working as intended.
Ship Owners/Managers tend to choose safety management/incident reporting and cybersecurity as the most commonly deployed risk and safety digital applications across their fleets. Furthermore, the connected ships have exponentially increased the ship operation data flow between ship and shore, leading to safer ships and efficient ship operations.
‘’Increasing safety is often one of the purposes of the new systems. However, if the new solutions fail to recognize the ship as a system, but just concentrate on one or several of the ship systems without communication interfaces to other systems, the expected benefits will not be realized.’’ noted Paäivi Haikkola, Senior Ecosystem Lead, ONE SEA – Autonomous Maritime Ecosystem, DIMECC Ltd
Nowadays, the digital solutions for voyage optimization, remote audits, and condition monitoring of the engine support ship crew to make informed decisions. The combination of the ship crew skill set and the technology are making ships safer. In the coming years, data will be the key component for the digital twin and autonomous ships. Already, Big data, AI and IoT sensors are considered as delivering the largest digitalization benefits. When it comes to navigation, several ship owners have fully deployed weather information while the use of ECDIS is widespread.
Key digital applications onboard include:
- Fuel optimization, fuel monitoring
- Vessel operations performance monitoring and analysis
- Emissions monitoring and analysis
- Vessel utilization optimization (e.g. demand or freight price forecast)
- Equipment condition monitoring and analysis
- Engine performance monitoring and analysis
- Cargo tracking and monitoring
- Port call optimization
- Bunker planning
‘’One way to improve energy efficiency is to optimize, to better plan operations, and – in a cost-efficient way – to reduce GHG emissions, lowering operational costs and possibly even improving revenue and thus the overall global competitive edge. However, for planning and optimizing operations, we would need to have current, up-to-date information of the ship’s condition, for example how well the ship is doing at the moment, the level of fouling, and whether this is affecting consumption’’, Dr. Teemu Manderbacka, Senior R&D Engineer, NAPA, said.
The key role of human factor
The maritime industry is already too far into the state of digital transformation. The biggest objective of this transformation is targeting the efficiency of ship operations which can be achieved only through an improved communication of the triangle between on-board operators’ onshore operators and digital solutions. However, the most frequent source of failures and cause of accidents is still based on human error.
Safety reporting and digitalization requires more than just technology. It requires three key elements — operational knowledge and experience, technology that works and a human-centered approach, mentioned Arild Risholm Sæther, CBDO – NavFleet, NAVTOR.
Digitalization facilitates the automation of processes and functions, and combining data streams from multiple sources allows better-informed decisions more quickly, creating more efficient and responsive organizations. But, if digitalization is to improve standards in safety reporting, shipowners must map a clear, achievable progression plan. They must assess their current digital systems as many harbor unused software licenses and obsolete legacy technologies.
Moving forward
Digitalization in the shipping industry should be viewed as a change in the way of delivering business by introducing cutting-edge technologies. Digitalization does not only encompass changes in ship and fleet operation, it also accelerates a robust backbone for planning and addressing health, safety and environment and industry compliance issues. There is no doubt that maritime digitalization will bring about a radical change in how shipping companies operate, collaborate and report.
To cope with digitalization in order to increase competitiveness and cost efficiency through optimization of assets, maritime stakeholders need to be open to innovation and embed agility into their corporate culture. Data standardization, collaborations among maritime stakeholders, and data collection on the digital platform will be the key to the next generation of safer, smarter, and greener ships.
