NAVTOR CEO Tor Svanes explains how the company’s recent merger with Voyager Worldwide is set to deliver smart(er) shipping opportunities to customers across the globe. It’s time, he argues, to think big.
NAVTOR’s merger with Voyager Worldwide created waves across the maritime world in December last year. One aspect was the boldness of the move by NAVTOR, which only formed in 2011, to take a business with over two centuries of shipping success under its wing. However, it was arguably the scale of the agreement that took most by surprise, redefining the landscape of the maritime technology niche.
“It’s definitely moved us onto another level,” comments Tor Svanes, NAVTOR’s CEO and, with over 40 years of high-level industry experience, a well-known figure within this constantly evolving domain.
“We now have products and services on over 18,000 vessels, which is roughly 30% of the entire world fleet within this market. There’s no other player that comes close. That scale is vital. For us, but also for our customers. With increased size we can offer increased benefits, making a real impact for an industry targeting greater efficiency, profitability and, of course, sustainability.”
And he’s keen to explain how.
Connect, integrate, enable
NAVTOR has always focused on ‘making life easy’ for shipping companies and sailors; introducing wave after wave of innovative solutions that cut administration, automate tasks, simplify safety and compliance, enhance vessel performance, and, when all’s said and done, save money, time and energy.
From e-navigation to performance management and optimisation, the team, which now numbers around 400 specialists, are experts at identifying ‘pain points’ and then priming their digital ecosystem to chew them up and spit them out. The point, no more pain.
Examples of this range from Passage Planning solutions that drastically reduce work and human error, through to emissions calculators (simplifying CII) on fleet management tool NavFleet, and a new generation of digital logbooks. These accelerate logbooks into the smart shipping age, automating and standardising tasks while unlocking a new source of big data potential for forward-thinking shipping companies.
“We connect, integrate and enable,” Svanes says, “using our ecosystem to unite vessels, fleets, onshore teams and entire businesses to empower better decision making. Data flows seamlessly and, crucially, can be really utilised to extract maximum value.
“Everything we do is focused on our goal of leading the way in smart shipping, and we’re now in a stronger position than ever to deliver on just that.”
The Voyager deal is key.
Developing ambition
By joining forces with the Singapore-headquartered business, NAVTOR, which has its own HQ in Egersund, Norway, unlocked a wealth of advantages.
The addition of thousands of customers is crucial, naturally, but so is the expanded network of offices, as well as the Voyager staff and their ‘in-demand’ talents.
Developers top the list.
“It seems everyone, across multiple industries, are competing for good developers,” Svanes admits, “and it was difficult to balance our growth ambitions with the (lack of) availability in the talent pool. With Voyager Worldwide we saw a group of very talented people, with 30 developers in their Aberdeen office alone, that could supercharge our innovation. That was a major incentive.”
The projects they’ll be working on are myriad, with NAVTOR constantly refining its vessel (NavStation) and shore (NavFleet) platforms, while also partnering with OEMs to pave the way for upcoming milestones, such as the introduction of the richer S-100 hydrographic data standard.
However, one initiative that shows both the ambition of the business, as well as the impact it can make on the industry when operating at scale, really stands out.
Say hello to the GASS (Green AI for Sustainable Shipping) project.
Smoother sAIling
GASS aims to do nothing less than transform smart shipping operations worldwide, leading to huge cuts in emissions, energy use and costs. How huge? Well, 20% per vessel.
Multiple those savings by over 18,000 and the scale becomes truly apparent.
GASS is a three-year endeavour, led by NAVTOR in partnership with Grieg Star, Maritime CleanTech, Scandinavian Reach Technologies, Simula Research Laboratory, SinOceanic Shipping, and Sustainable Energy/SIVA, with support from the Norwegian Research Council, Innovation Norway, and SIVA.
In short, it aims to enable “data driven decarbonisation” by creating AI empowered digital twins of vessels based on precise operational and environmental data. These will then be used to demonstrate a benchmark of real-time optimal fuel consumption. If the actual vessel – and that’s any vessel, anywhere, sailing in any conditions – falls short of that standard the data can be instantly analysed to find out why, leading to corrective, on the spot decision making.
Svanes says the product will be a software module that can be integrated into NAVTOR’s ecosystem to empower true “dynamic voyage optimisation”.
He explains: “That means both crews and onshore teams can work as one to address issues and deviations from plans as they actually happen. This will be a gamechanger.”
Global gains
It quickly becomes clear he means a gamechanger not just for individual companies, but for the entire industry and, indeed, the whole world.
Going back to the scale issue, he stresses: “If we can cut 20% of all vessel emissions, across over 30% of the world fleet, then that means we can help enable a reduction of over 5% in the overall emissions of the entire shipping industry.”
Svanes accepts that this sounds ambitious but adds that “we can do this”, pointing out the domain expertise of the partners, in addition to NAVTOR’s track record of introducing breakthrough industry firsts – NavStation, for example, was the world’s first digital chart table, while the company also pioneered ‘pay as you sail’ ENCs.
“We are dedicated to pushing the possibilities of maritime digital developments,” he concludes, “constantly innovating to help our industry access powerful smart shipping advantages.
“The merger compounds the impact our solutions can have, helping a growing customer base meet both their commercial and environmental objectives. I can’t think of anything smarter than that!”
