For the 6th year running Fathom Maritime Intelligence has put expert ship efficiency discussions firmly on the global agenda at the annual Ship Efficiency: The Event.
This year the conference and exhibition was held in London between November 2 -3, 2016. Day one of the conference was chaired by Industry expert Neville Smith (Director, Mariner Communications). Day two of the conference was chaired by Alison Jarabo (MD, Fathom Maritime intelligence).
In this week’s industry spotlight, Ship Efficiency Review takes a look at the events’ highlights.
The Connected Ecosystem Takes Centre Stage at Ship Efficiency: The Event
Event partner, Transas, opened the conference with their presentation focussing on their connected ecosystem, THESIS, with Transas’ Solutions Director, Guy Sears saying that it is vital that individual elements of ship efficiency are fitted together, making sure that these elements of gains and losses are understood.
Sears showcased their four-pillar ecosystem, THESIS, which consists of: Ship Solutions, Fleet Operations, Academy Functions, and Ship Traffic Control.
Transas say that the connected ship should prosper and utilise tools to reduce workload, reduce human error, minimise system downtime and give remote support. However, Sears reiterated the fact that implementing the human element into these is even more crucial.
Hapag Lloyd says Onshore Role is Crucial for Data Analysis
Hapag Lloyd’s Fleet Support Centre Director, Joern Springer talked about the involvement of the shore side in data collection and how analysis is imperative.
“We have to look at what happens in the supply chain, not just onboard”, he stated. Looking at all aspects of data and where it comes into play is key, and this means making operations and data more transparent said the ship owner representative.
“We are just understanding how to use data now, but as it grows it becomes not just big data, but smart data. And we need smart ways to manage this,” he said.
In order to do this, Springer believes that the industry needs to know what data to store, where to store it, who to share it with and where to get investment from.
Delegates Get Insight into Recently Launched Big Data Platform
The managing director of Dutch company We4Sea, Mr Dan Veen took to the podium next to detail the capabilities of their platform, which seeks to reduce fuel costs and emissions by up to 20% using connected big data. According to Veen, a number of tests were carried out on ships over time to find the best fuel saving technologies, using big data on the actual operations of ships.
The web based platform then takes this information into account, offering insight into all of the operations onboard ships that affect their fuel efficiency.
Knowing your ship’s profile and operational surroundings is essential as “you can only improve if you have insight into what you do,” stated Veen.
Crew Training Dominates Agenda
Focussing on the symbiosis between people and technology, four industry experts took to the stage to discuss the roles of crew training and how education must be tailored to suit individual needs.
The human element is a critical aspect of any ship operation, but what is more important is ensuring that the human element has the competence in order to carry out operations and make decisions as effectively as possible, said Dr Maria Carrera-Arce Senior Specialist, Strategic Research at Lloyd’s Register. People need to be properly experienced, but integrating complex technology and ever increasing smart systems with competent people that can use the systems is challenging, she said.
Both Dleep Fotedar and Dr. Nicola Crawford of the City of Glasgow College agreed that competence is key. What should each seafarer be competent in first was the question asked. Sometimes the skills are available but the behaviour is what needs training, suggested Fotedar. The expansion of the £220 million Glasgow College maritime training centre aims to do just this, using psychology alongside technology to inspire to students and give them the skills they need to understand the technology.
According to Fotedar, seafarers can look at data, GPS, radar, and understand what it shows but not truly understand what it means. Today, people are becoming used to seeing data all the time, such as through smart phones and other smart technology, but are becoming less accustomed to thinking about the data it displays and questioning if and why there could be errors.
In order to ensure we can provide this, we need people to make decisions based on a way of learning that suits them, said Crawford. Exercises that are tailored to an individual’s learning style are essential to enable seafarers to learn best and learn properly. It’s all very well investing in new technologies and smarter methods of shipping, but what we really need is to invest the innovations in humans.
IMO Panel set Ablaze with Post MEPC70 Debate and Discussion
First out of the starting gates came questions from conferece delegates about the Ballast Water Management (BWM) Convention. Katy Ware, Director of Maritime Safety and Standards, Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA) and Permanent Representative of the UK to the IMO, stated, “it is not about uncertainty anymore, but about working together to implement the Convention. Manufacturers now need time to demonstrate that their systems comply with regulations and ship owners now need to look at retrofitting 2nd generation G8 approved ballast water management systems (BWMS)”, she suggested.
Arsenio Dominguez, Permanent Representative of Panama to the IMO and Chairman of the IMO’s Marine Environment Protection Committee (MEPC), stated that the implementation is “necessary burden” and urged the industry to make sure “we keep an eye on and help those countries that require assistance to keep a level playing field”. Not everyone will be able to comply, “but we cannot have ship owner after ship owner asking for exemptions. We have to make sure they are keeping up and provide the help they need”, he warned.
The implementation of the EU’s Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) regulation was also discussed with great gusto, with the panel calling on the problems with different rules by the EU and the IMO regarding emissions monitoring. As Ware explained, “there are three areas where the IMO data collection system differs from the EU’s one. We need the IMO to develop a system to implement the review process on MRV”. At the current time the EU system refers to the ISO method, and according to Ware, this is complicated. There is too much terminology and we need to refine and redefine it, but the question is now, how do we do it?
Tom Strang, Senior Vice President, Maritime Affairs, Carnival Corporation who joined the IMO representatives on the panel, agreed that there are a lot of discrepancies between the two rulings and drew upon the importance of the human element in implementing regulations. Huge amounts are invested in training and academies, but we need to ensure that people can use data that is provided, such as with MRV, he stated.
WWL Flexes Its Green Muscles
As part of the event’s green debate, Iver Iversen, Director New Technology and Regulatory Affairs at Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics (WWL) detailed the myriad of green projects underway that are driving the company’s profile as a sustainability leader.
Several projects that include slow steaming, continuous improvement on weather routing, voyage planning and waste heat recovery are now underway, while their use of no more than 0.1% sulphur content fuel at all ports. Furthermore, at the current time they are looking into the operational profile of paint schemes, ensuring that time is taken and decisions based on such schemes are not made with haste. The operational profile of the ship needs to meet the operational profile of the scheme, he said.
The UK Chamber of Shipping Hosts a Ship Operator Safety Debate
David balston, the UK Chamber’s Director of Policy put the importance of safety onboard into context when making his opening speech, sharing examples of some of the worst shipping disasters to have taken place to-date. These were attributed to lack of safety procedures that were carried out, either because of fear of questioning a higher officer, or simply down to lack of reporting to others what is going on, he said.
Balston said that the industry needs to install more confidence into seafarers by allowing them to voice an opinion when they feel things aren’t quite right, without fear of penalisation.
One of the key points voiced by the panellists was that assessment culture is key to preventing accidents. Carnival Corporation’s Heady of Safety Russell Hobbs stated that safety conversions and a safety change technique is necessary. On board Carnival’s ships they have witnessed a remarkable change as crew are now not afraid to voice their safety concerns. He also stated that they there is now a culture where strong relationships exist and we need to work, as an industry, towards captains letting the team take over at certain points and lowering the hierarchy to empower crew for safety purposes.
How about encouraging people to report without fear? asked David Balston. In response, DFDS’s Marine Standards, Marine Superintendent Stephen Fairle agreed that people do need encouraging, and they trust their people, taking into account what they say in order to implement a safe culture.
John Balike, Head of QHSE, Craig Group agreed, “we trust them (the crew) and we know that they will give us the answers. If we don’t have a good safety culture, we won’t work. Trust in our crew is essential” he concluded.
MRV Regs Fuel Great Discussions
Stephan Wrage, CTO, Skysails Group emphasised the challenges that lie ahead of the MRV CO2 regulation following last week’s decision at MEPC 70 to bring the MRV into force in April 2018.
“Although we have heard before the ways to overcome the challenges of implementing the regulation, what we need to do now is to operationalise this. Correct policies are key, while automated data collection that is high enough quality to do what is required in different regulations is vital”, Wrage stated.
He continued: “Now, what we need to do to generate all of these processes and automated data generation into a service in order to reduce the reduce the risk of accidental non-compliance.” This is where being smart comes into play, Wrage stated. MRV reporting is a big chance to collect data, but if it is being used for reporting CO2 emissions then we may as well harvest it and use it to optimise other operations onboard to increase efficiency and reduce costs, Wrage continued.
Automised reporting is particularly important as it gives people the tools to react immediately. According to Wrage, Skysails have seen savings of 10% by doing this. However, it is vital that good components are in place, such as sensors, to help set up and calibrate to reduce the risk of wrong use and non-compliance.
In another panel, Michael Servos, Energy Manager, Tsakos Columbia Shipmanagement also spoke of the importance of data collection and digitalisation in implementation of the EU MRV regulation. Additional resources on personnel, software, hardware will be required, and a major task will be developing a useful data collection system before MRV enters into force. “Data are critical. This process needs to be automated as it will take too much time to do using people. It is a very time consuming process to collect and analyse data” he stated.
However, the benefits of the MRV in terms of ship design will lie in the development of more efficient designs as the regulation will add additional pressure to ship owners to seek the most efficiently designed ships for more efficient operations, Servos concluded.
Expert Says Liability Issues Associated with Unmanned Ships Must Be Resolved
According to Karno Tenovuo, VP Ship Intelligence, Rolls-Royce, there is an evident unmanned trend in society, and it is not a case of if, but when, unmanned ships are available. Unmanned ships are just one part of the move into a digital future, but before we can fully implement them we need to sort out liability problems before moving ahead, ensuring there are enough data and analysis to deal with cybersecurity and communications, and health and safety management to ensure the future of maritime operations.
Martin Briddon, Business Development and Engineering Manager at James Fisher MIMIC agreed with Tenovuo, stating that data maintenance needs to be looked at more and how data is generated and how it affects processes in order to make decisions throughout an organisation for long-term success. For example, looking at the long-term picture and using a systems approach is key. Using data to understand how carrying out one operation, such as slowing a ship’s speed by 2 knots, will affect the long-term maintenance of hulls and other components.
What COP21 Means for Shippign Examined
Edwin Pang, Business Development Director, Senior Naval Architect, Herbert Engineering Corp , highlighted the importance of climate change and drew upon shipping’s fair share of contribution to reducing CO2 levels.
Aviation and shipping both contribute 2.8% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. As the Paris Agreement enters into force today, we need to establish what and how we can contribute to the reduction of GHG emissions he stated. MEPC 70’s roadmap will work from now until 2023 to reduce environmental impact of shipping, but whatever we do now, we need to do better, Pang emphasised.
The industry has generally been quite resistant to market based measures and we need to involve and optimise the logistics supply chain to reduce carbon emissions. Avoiding tunnel vision is essential, stated Pang.
A statement from an audience member sparked new concerns. The weather is getting worse because of climate and therefore developing weather routing software is tricky and may not be as efficient as possible as ships. If weather routing software is not as efficient as it could be, ships will generate more CO2 than if the software was more efficient – a viscous circle that is hard to get out of.
The Ship Efficiency Awards Celebrates Industry Leaders
This year’s Ship Efficiency: The Event also played host to the annual Ship Efficiency Awards. To find out who won what and to browse through the official ceremony photos , please click here.
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