By Peter Mantel, Managing Director, BMT SMART
The shipping industry holds tradition, custom and practice in high esteem, and quite rightly so. However, the old ways are not necessarily the most effective ways in the modern world.
The value of accessing real-time data across a fleet of ships as part of a shore-based management strategy is also being recognised but the challenge in the short term will be to ensure stakeholders are fully equipped to truly understand the data. Only then can they reap the untapped benefits of this intelligence in their drive towards safer, more efficient and cost-effective asset performance.
The multiple pressures on the global maritime industry mean that ship owners and charterers can no longer afford to ignore the performance of their fleet. This in turn has led to an increase in demand for Fleet and Vessel Performance Management (FVPM). However, some ship owners, operators and charterers are still wary of the value such a monitoring system can deliver. Perhaps this is understandable having been used to an environment where Chief Engineers produced miracles on a regular basis, armed only with the data from dials in their engine rooms. Furthermore, the sophistication of the data and what it truly means can be daunting and as such, many stakeholders are feeling overwhelmed, to the point where it’s a headache they want to avoid.
Unsurprisingly, quick wins such as on-board optimisation and specific energy saving devices (ESDs) which are fitted to the vessel have quickly come to the fore. However, it’s important to note the limitations with such an approach. Whilst there are cost savings to be made, these are extremely hard to quantify in a verifiable way and these tools can often be seen as a burden to the crew. Shore-side performance management can provide ship owners and charterers with the tools to manage whole fleets of vessels and not just those that they own and operate.
This easy to use, automated process can focus on commercial factors such as the voyage cost. By monitoring in real-time the actual versus budgeted cost, steps can be taken to help minimise the overall voyage cost. Owners whose vessels are on time-charter can also monitor compliance against existing charter party agreements and use performance management data to construct speed-consumption curves for future charters to help maximise revenue.
Such an approach can also address technical matters, i.e. how the asset is performing by looking more closely at: hull and propeller degradation; engine condition/SFOC and evaluation and verification of specific ESDs such as hull coatings or propeller boss cap fin. Furthermore, the operations department can obtain valuable information on trim optimisation and on-time performance, i.e. what is the probabilistic % chance of making ETA.
Untapped data sources
Although FVPM is on the increase, many stakeholders are still unaware of its full potential. A key challenge for many stakeholders is high retention rates of crew personnel. On average, crew within cross ocean trades can change every six months and every three to four months within coastal trades. This issue is leading to a situation whereby crews cannot build up a comprehensive understanding of the optimal way of operating a specific vessel.
By utilising shore-based performance management, owners and charterers can compare crew performance and start to identify specific trends in relation to the way in which they operate the vessel: why is one crew burning less fuel than the other when the environmental conditions are the same, for example. This can then provide a much easier route to sharing best practice between different crews and even if the crew is relatively new to a vessel, they can be equipped with the knowledge to optimise the performance of the vessel. There are already a number of companies who are setting KPIs for their crews and incentivising them if they are able to burn less fuel or optimise ETAs – an approach which will no doubt become commonplace in the near future.
E-navigation is expected to have a significant impact on the future of marine navigation. The IMO which is driving this initiative describes the compelling need for e-navigation as “a clear and compelling need to equip the master of a vessel and those ashore responsible for the safety of shipping with modern, proven tools to make maritime navigation and communications more reliable and user friendly and thereby reducing errors”. However, it has been noted that without proper coordination, there is a risk that the future development of marine navigation systems will be hampered through a lack of standardisation onboard and ashore. There is no doubt that e-navigation is the future – what the industry must do is expand the idea by thinking about it more holistically under the umbrella of ‘vessel performance’. That way, stakeholders can start monitoring vessel performance, safety and risk management all under one system, rather than several different systems which can lead to unnecessary complexity in understanding the data and a disparate approach.
Data from performance management systems such as BMT SMARTFLEET can also provide a pathway to effective predictive maintenance models. Such systems can already identify any inefficiencies – the next step is to identify actions and provide valuable advice to stakeholders on what should be done. Dry-docking for maintenance and renewal of antifouling can be timed to take place just before any rapid drop-off in vessel performance, highlighted by historical and probabilistic efficiency and operational data.
What does the future hold?
It is not unrealistic to envisage a time when all merchant vessels are equipped with a fully integrated bridge where performance parameters and emissions data is displayed alongside navigation systems and thruster controls. Voyage planning can already be checked against efficiency and emissions requirements to identify the most appropriate routing, while performance management reports can be produced automatically. Such reports can cover everything from environmental impact, hull and propeller efficiency and bunkering factors through to crew data, scheduled maintenance results, economic modelling and SEEMP/legislation.
The combination of more rigorous legislation and harder economic conditions has led to a situation where ship-owners and operators need to have easy access to the emissions and performance data for their vessels. The benefits of being able to use real-time data to dynamically manage the performance of a fleet of vessels, or choose to analyse and review data over a period of time, to be able to make informed operational and maintenance decisions are hard to ignore.
