When Frank Coles, CEO of Transas takes to the podium at a conference you know you are in for an engaging 15 minutes. His speech at CMA Shipping 2016 last week was no different.
This man can share much insight from his experiences. After all, his varying high level roles have put him at the coalface of smart shipping development for the past decade or more.
He presented some serious ’food for thought’ for delegates in the room and the wider industry alike.
As always, Coles prompted listeners to cast their minds into the future and scope the potential that the industry could grasp if engaged in smart shipping, e-navigation and connected working.
He reflected upon how the power of Apple’s iOS operating system is present into everyone’s lives, connecting the varied range of Apple products that we have in our possession without us even realising. Have you ever stopped to think how powerful it is to have your iPhone, iWatch, iPod and iMac (if you are a prolific Apple fan) all connected, sharing all of your digital content, photos, music, contacts, messages etc? I know I certainly hadn’t.
The Apple iOS platform allows users to connect just one user profile to a range of devices and it will share all of your content across each, which can all be controlled by the user. This is the kind of platform the industry needs, and that will be the future, Coles affirmed with much gusto.
His message was that we can all work together with the same information, like the Apple operating system. All of the elements already exist in the industry as does the connectivity required to support such a system, we just need a platform. An infrastructure to host it.
Coles spoke heavily around how the status quo of the ship to shore relationship needs to change. He believes that more and more decision making will be made from the shore in coming years and decades. The need to take mundane paperwork and tasks off the ship, allowing crew to concentrate on what is important, running the ship and getting it safely, and efficiently, from A to B is more crucial than ever he says. And the ecosystem that Transas is currently developing will support this transition.
But to transit to the industry that Coles speaks of, we need to change current attitudes to smart attitudes, according to this expert.
Also, the role of the master and the chief officer was something Coles put under the spotlight many times during his speech. People within these roles are now being expected to be a “super mariner”, as Coles puts it, and this needs to change to there being more shared responsibility, he stressed. The master needs to feel more enabled and automation needs to support his decisions, he says.
However, the fact that automation can only take the industry so far was heavily emphasised by Coles.
His belief is that the attitude has to change towards how we work between ship and shore in order for us to move into a smart shipping world.
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