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"Smart Ships": Heading For Port
"Smart Ships": Heading For Port
FUTURES:
smart ships
“Smart ships”
heading for port
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FUTURES:
smart ships
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FUTURES:
smart ships
Its Future Operator Experience Concept Lloyd’s Register (LR) chief executive Richard Sadler
DID YOU KNOW? or ‘oX’, developed with Finland’s VTT is a strong advocate of a maritime world where data
Smart ships will use Technical Research Centre, sees a future from ship structures, components and machinery is
voyage data and data with smart crew workstations, which centrally collected and used to enhance maintenance
from ship structures, automatically recognize individuals when programs.
components and they walk into the bridge, and adjust to
machinery to enhance their own preferences. The windows of “My vision for this is that all the design data collected
performance the oX bridge will be augmented reality by major shipbuilders around the world from these
displays of the vessel’s surroundings,
including visualizations of potential
hazards that would otherwise be invisible to the
human eye.
“Smart ships” – tomorrow’s
Rolls-Royce President, Marine, Mikael Makinen describes
this as a “truly exciting period in the history of shipping”. “talking” hulls
He says: “Technology, and in particular, the smart use of Advances in ship construction and in materials for
big data is going to drive the next generation of ships. ship building, could lead to “talking” ship hulls,
Over the next 10 to 20 years we believe ship intelligence potentially enabling real-time data to be sent to a
is going to be the driving force that will determine the centralized control center to take the guess work out
future of our industry, the type of ships at sea, and the of stress monitoring in future.
competence levels required from tomorrow’s seafarers.”
This micro-level monitoring will remove many of the
Classification societies have already started to unknowns in shipping casualties, as detailed data will
review their services in light of the arrival of what provide the information needed to quickly ascertain
they describe as “data-centric engineering”. Lloyd’s why a structural failure occurred.
Register Foundation, the UK charity dedicated to
research and education in science and engineering, With costs for nanomaterials and ultra-sensitive
published its Foresight Review of Big Data in gauges coming down, classification societies have
December, explaining that data-centric engineering already turned their focus on to the future of ship
places a value on data as an asset in itself, and puts construction and how to best handle the big data
data considerations at the core of engineering design. that ships of the future will be able to generate.
This, it believes, will improve “performance, safety,
reliability and efficiency of assets, infrastructures and Jarek Klimczak, Master Mariner and Senior Ma-
complex machines”. rine Risk Consultant, AGCS believes the industry
could start benefitting from this “smart” technology
Changing role of classification societies within one to two years but cost will be a hurdle to
Dr Sven Gerhard, Global Product Leader Hull & widespread take-up. There is also the question of
Marine Liabilities, AGCS, agrees that classification what to do with the amount of data that will be gen-
societies have certainly discovered the value of big data, erated and how classification societies will alter their
“but they do not yet know how they are going to use surveying services based on this level of detail.
it. They know they have to develop new services and
new products. We will see changes with classification
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FUTURES:
smart ships
technologies would be held in a control center that could Those in the shipping industry entrenched in a certain
be run by them, or perhaps even by LR. Instead of using way of working may find it difficult to adjust to a
prescriptive regulation for maintenance on a time-based new model with different partnerships and different
system, we would use this data to run the machinery skills. This technical revolution will certainly lead to a
until it shows signs of requiring maintenance.” fundamental change in the services provided by those
at the sharp end of the industry, namely ship builders
But this evolution comes at a price, and a hefty one and classification societies. But ultimately there
at that, if you start down the road of a centralized will be few shipping sectors that will not be directly
control center to process big data, as Sadler challenged by the advent of smart ships and data-
envisions. centric engineering.
For more information
visit http://www. “For the shipping industry cost might be a big
agcs.allianz.com/ barrier especially with the present condition of the Dr Sven Gerhard
insights/white- market,” agrees Klimczak, while Gerhard believes it Global Product Leader Hull & Marine Liabilities, AGCS
papers-and-case- is a question of cost efficiency and what companies sven.gerhard@allianz.com
studies/shipping- actually want to achieve with their big data.
review-2015/ Captain Andrew Kinsey
And even if the money can be found, the change Senior Marine Risk Consultant, Allianz Risk Consulting
in mind-set needed to drive smart ship development andrew.kinsey@agcs.allianz.com
still needs to be overcome. The future value of big
data can only be realized through organizational and Jarek Klimczak
cultural change in combination with the acceptance Master Mariner and Senior Marine Risk Consultant, AGCS
of appropriate analytical tools, skills and practices. jarek.klimczak@allianz.com
Photo: gcaptain.com
2008-built 8,110 teu MOL Comfort in 2013 now
complete, the industry is only fractionally closer
to determining a definitive cause for the casualty.
The investigation by the ship’s classification
society Class NK into the loss blamed “uncertainty
factors” for the structural failure and could not
definitively answer if design and construction or
operational flaws had led to the disaster.
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