DNV GL issued a practical guide for the maritime industry, advising on ways to create value from data, noting that it sees massive opportunities for the industry players able to move fast and with the required commitment.
The guide focuses on the following key areas:
- Make digitalization a priority
Digitalization needs to become a standing agenda item for Board and senior management meetings. The role of today’s CIO must evolve towards that of a CDO (Chief Data Officer).
- Map your current situation
-Catalogue key data assets, the on-board data being collected as well as the data from external sources.
-Describe the vessels’ data network infrastructure.
-Identify the practices of the crew’s handling of manual input data.
-Describe the company’s data management infrastructure.
-Identify which decisions are taken based on the data onshore.
-Consider the capability to generate new insights from data and the willingness to collaborate in cross-silo data exploration.
- Chart the way ahead
The above assessment of the current situation will have identified multiple opportunities to work on issues that hinder better data analytics, like poor or unknown data quality, insufficient data standards or limited access to data across organizational units. Once these limitations and bottlenecks are removed, the organization should focus on extracting more value from the data that are already available. This might require investment in analytics tools – now worth it, as the results will be based on known quality data.
Once sufficient data management and analytical performance has been achieved and measurable effects of these start to become visible, it is probably time to extend the effort and onboard these new data streams and tools. More data use and better structured information is an enabler, but large cost reductions or revenue increases depend on operations, fleet management and commercial departments to innovate and explore opportunities.
- Set yourself up for continuous improvement
Build tight feedback loops that involve senior management in a continuous plan–do–check–act process around the digital initiatives. A constant questioning and reviewing of the initiatives chosen will be required.
- Manage your investments
The return on investment for each initiative might take time to materialize, and a well-defined milestone plan is needed to guide when and how the path might have to be adapted or a project abandoned.
Relying on own investments is not the only alternative and often not the preferred one. It is safe to assume that many peers are struggling with similar challenges. Joining forces on specific projects can help overcome the lack of scale of many ship owners and managers towards these initiatives. Working with external partners can help – in addition – to tap into industry best practices beyond what is known in any one company and secure continuing investments and upgrades as well as adjustments to new technologies and regulation.
The full guide can be downloaded here.
