How big data will transform shipping

How big data will transform shipping

Imagine a world where the inanimate objects of the shipping industry could talk. What would today’s ships tell us about the stress overweight containers place on their hulls? How would they describe the strain they are put under by certain weather conditions? And how would they express the real impact of slow steaming on their superstructure? It sounds the stuff of science fiction, but “talking” ships could be just a few years away.

These “smart ships” of the not-so-distant future will be able to “talk” through the use of nanotechnology in paints, coatings and materials, while ultra-sensitive monitoring through the use of acoustic fibers will allow the detection of minute changes in vibrations.

In this brave, new maritime world voyage data and data from ship structures, components and machinery will be collated and used to enhance performance, productivity and, crucially, safety. There will also be commercial benefits – key if the innovation is to stick – where, for example, instead of avoiding bad weather, ship operators can optimize routes that are tailored to the capability of the ship.

      "Smart ships will use voyage data and data from ship       structures, components and machinery to enhance       performance” This will then lead to a natural move away from fixed maintenance intervals, towards tailored predictive maintenance, which will reduce operator risk and provide improved cost efficiency. Analytics will also support maintenance planning and optimization, as well as operational planning and deployment. Generally, ships today factor in maintenance at a time that is convenient to the commercial plan, but in the future routes might be adapted dynamically to fit with the operational and mechanical plan.

Jarek Klimczak, Master Mariner and Senior Marine Risk Consultant, AGCS, explains that some early adopters are already on board with the benefits of hull monitoring. “I used to sail on a vessel which had acceleration gauges. These monitored acceleration and measured how the hull behaved under certain conditions. This system allowed constant monitoring of the vessel and made a prognosis based on the weather forecast, parameters of the vessel and the readings.” But super smart ships throw up a fundamental problem: what to do with the large amount of data they will inevitably generate. Ultimately, it will be the success or otherwise of handling this industry-specific big data that will dictate the level of ship efficiency gains.

Captain Andrew Kinsey, Senior Marine Risk Consultant, Allianz Risk Consulting, AGCS, believes that looking at ships at this organic level needs careful thought. “You can get so much data at this nano-level – how do you adequately collate, read and analyze it?” Once these questions have been answered, you can do big things with this big data. Feedback over the life of the vessel on what it is actually doing, rather than relying on theory, is a solution to understanding what has happened with marine losses, says Kinsey. “When you can get actual reports on what the vessel was encountering that will revolutionize construction. It’s fascinating and it’s not going to go away,” he says.

In fact, future ship intelligence goes beyond nanotech and ultra-monitoring. Rolls-Royce believes that within 10 years, ships’ bridges will be solely focused on processing high level data analysis to operate on-board systems to manage propulsion and navigation.

Its Future Operator Experience Concept or ‘oX’, developed with Finland’s VTT Technical Research Centre, sees a future with smart crew workstations, which automatically recognize individuals when they walk into the bridge, and adjust to their own preferences. The windows of the oX bridge will be augmented reality displays of the vessel’s surroundings, including visualizations of potential hazards that would otherwise be invisible to the human eye.

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