For as long as ships are treated as separate entities to the office, and exchange of useful information between the two is absent or ineffective, compromises, inefficiencies, delays and resulting costs will be inevitable and have indeed become mainstream within the shipping industry, notes Mr. Nicolas Mitsotakis, Co-Founder,M2Intelligence.
Decision makers must have live, transparent, unfiltered information when they need it, in addition to meaningful past records to effectively evaluate a situation and make educated decisions. When it comes to audiovisual material, combined with sensory data, one can really see what is happening.
Small operators are facing ever increasing standards to meet with only limited resources, while large managers are striving to effectively manage their rapidly growing fleets. Standards are meant to change for the better, regulations are pushing, multiple vetting requirements exist from numerous key stakeholders and now, more than ever, attendances onboard ships are seriously constrained, often leaving managers blind, only capable to react to incidents. The accuracy of reports is often insufficient for real root cause analysis and so preventive action in the navigational, technical, safety and environmental areas is not possible.
Lack of real eyes on the ship has cost. And it costs time and resources in a period that technology and satellite networks enable direct access to the vessels. M2i offers real time video and audio streaming with ships worldwide/oceanwide enabling remote surveys, audits, inspections, drills, training, medical assistance and troubleshooting as well as constant monitoring and recording of vessels’ key areas. While the market adopts today’s solutions, M2i incorporates edge technology in order to enhance existing services, learn from the data, perform health monitoring and ultimately forecasting.
Key tools & solutions
GVMS (Global Vessel Monitoring Solution) is an end-to-end, enterprise grade, smart, video monitoring solution providing worldwide real-time streaming as well as recording of the vessels. We promote the use of our solutions for safety purposes, to protect individuals’ life and health, for the security of people and assets, incident investigation, training, equipment monitoring, accuracy of statements of facts, weather and operations monitoring, statistical analysis and improvement of procedures. Typically, cameras are installed at the fly-bridge or the bridge wings, the wheel house, the poop deck and the engine room spaces (M/E, A/E’s, ECR, OWS). The system can be extended to cover numerous other areas aboard ships and offers the smartness to support motion detection, stowaways’ detection and notifications, identification of abnormal scenarios onboard via enabled machine vision, image blurring and more. Video feed is made available directly to authorized users’ computers and smartphones via the M2i Android and iOS Apps. The system offers sophisticated compression to minimize satellite connectivity resources required. Overall system security is of the highest standards.
GRAS (Global Remote Assistance Solution) is an end-to-end, enterprise grade, Remote Assistance Solution, enabling Vessel Remote Survey and Auditing, Troubleshooting, Training and Medical Assistance with minimal bandwidth requirements. Shore users are connected to a portable camera and audio streaming device onboard, which carried throughout the ship spaces allows for live viewing and two-way audio communication, even at very loud environments. Access can also be provided to third parties such as specialized service engineers, Class and service vendors in order to offer their services remotely. Remote assistance to the crew members is therefore made possible worldwide/oceanwide.
Wi-Fi Enablement: Wi-Fi network across the vessel is a key enabler for a number of existing and coming solutions, and is fundamental for users to maximize the use cases and benefits of the M2i GRAS system. It is a futureproof investment for every type and size of vessel, for an ever-growing number of wireless applications. Ship side expertise, compliance with regulations, hardware and software reliability and consistency, system expandability and simplicity for the IT departments are key for a successful implementation. M2i solutions utilize machine learning and AI technology for maximizing user experience and systems’ performance. On a hardware level, options allow for cable-less implementations, avoiding expensive and time consuming installations on the ship.
ECDISmart / RADARSmart: The value in monitoring and recording, amongst plentiful information, the location, speed and heading of the vessel as well as the surrounding ships is significant. Effectively, one can now have an ECDIS/RADAR repeater in the office. Evaluating passage plans and performing post analysis for route optimization can result in tangible savings for the company. This market urge has dictated the development of the ECDISsmart and RADARSmart solutions which have demonstrated great, cost effective, potential.
Key benefits
- Downtime: Reduce downtime by offering immediate assistance to the vessel when needed.
- Remote Surveys: Perform Class/Flag/RO remote surveys anytime, anywhere.
- Ship Support/Troubleshooting: Receive real time third party specialist or office assistance.
- Monitoring: Operations, weather conditions, stevedores’ damages, cargo spillage, STS operations, repairs and so on.
- Weather monitoring: Whether the target is to assess the main engine and hull performance, charter party compliance or cargo holds’ ingress of water, weather monitoring is key and reflects real rather than statistical data.
- Cargo: Improper cargo handling, cargo spillage, cargo damage as well as monitoring of custom parameters, greatly assist the safe execution of loading/discharging operations and the voyage itself. Extraordinary incidents. Collisions, groundings, fire, flooding, accidents onboard (slips and falls, falling objects, burns and explosions, accidents with machinery equipment etc.) can be analyzed internally.
- Crew fatigue: Perform internal inspections underway when crew is not under pressure.
- PSC: Perform better on PSC and other inspections having the ability to inspect vessel before port arrival.
- Security: An effective anti-piracy measure, monitoring ship spaces including the CITADEL room. Retrieve vital information from your records.
- Safety: Maintain higher standards. Support your crew members.
- Medical: A means offering medical assistance to crew members allowing doctors to easily assess patients’ condition, guiding them accordingly.
- Training: Remotely perform drills, evaluate incidents and establish procedures basis real recorded facts.
- Investigation: Perform incidents’ investigation which together with reports from the vessel allow for a thorough analysis.
- Statistics/Analytics: Monitor KPIs, take calculated decisions and improve the quality of services reducing costs and time.
- Integration: Intergraded architecture with customers’ existing infrastructure. Integration with OTESAT_MARITEL Satcoms Solutions and S@tGate Platform.
- Pricing Structure/Customer support: Flexible pricing models and 24/7 customer support available.
How to move forward
Ship managers should opt for acquiring technological experience and expertise and should plan for their strategic disruption.
It is our philosophy to evolve working with our clients and to effectively address their specific needs while demonstrating new capabilities to the market. We adopt or develop the means, test on the field, ensure compliance with key regulatory bodies and offer cost effective solutions mitigating day to day inefficiencies. We continuously enhance our solutions, adopt smart elements, add to the functionality of our systems, reduce the bandwidth requirements, simplify the user experience and work towards producing useful material for post hoc analyses.
From time and location stamp, motion detection, smart recording, security and live CITADEL monitoring, off-line mode function, user notifications and alarms, incident recognition, night vision, to crew mapping onboard, Covid-19 measures via thermal cameras, incorporation of artificial intelligence and machine vision technology and more.
Our Team is building long term relationships with clients and can jointly take over blueprint and customized solutions to cater for specific needs and requirements. Clients, mostly the ship owners, can currently be supported from Singapore or Greece, while our company explores all potential within the Greek and international ecosystem, including Classification Societies, Flag Administrations, NGOs and other industry service providers and players. Please visit our website at www.m2intelligence.com or contact us directly for all enquiries.
The views presented hereabove are only those of the author and do not necessarily those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.
