Ship Owners using data to reduce operational costs

Maritime industry is responsible for all the global trade happening. Around 90% of goods we use have sailed across the ocean to reach us. With hundreds of ships sailing the world oceans, there is a lot of data industry is generating and remains unused. Operations can be made Cost-Effective and improve efficiency and also be used to streamline and centralized the ship operations.

Digitalization of the vessels is a strategic approach that can help ship management companies and ship operators to invest in technology and make better use of the data that is tapped and monitor, on large scale this can help in fuel optimization, performance monitoring and predictive diagnostics. Machine data from ME, AE, Scrubbers, boilers, Pumps when used in correlation can interpret the cause of alarms and alerts.

Ways you can use big data in the shipping industry

Analyzing machine, equipment data enables shipping companies to make better decisions, improve performance, predict and address problems, define KPI’s and prevent failure of the machines and avoid downtime. Here are 5 ways you can use data for actionable insight and to gain a competitive advantage.

1. Predictive analysis: Predictive analytics can help companies to plan out number of operational, management and activities, with the data to support every decision. It helps offshore team to plan and maintain the supply chain. Ship owners can track and maintain schedules for the ship, plan the spare replacement and have maintenance schedule lined out. This information can be used to understand the performance of the vessels, machine and engine wear & tear, creating transparency and most important to monitor every single equipment. It can also be used by  senior management to take strategic & financial decisions, for the fleet.
2. Spot trends: The ship owners and operators can use data to spot trends in machine and engine behavior. In the global maritime industry where we observe tight schedule, deadlines, and various unpredicted actions can stop the complete sailing body, which could be understated changes in weather patterns which hampers the ETA or adds resistance that causes engine to add more power to increase the speed. This can impact engine performance increase fuel consumption and added more resistance on ship means early maintenance or change in spare. For operators, advanced monitoring system that help them in tracking and monitoring the performance and tracking the trends in easy format can, help them in planning, maintain and allocating budget for the various operational cost as required by analyzing the data.
3. Route optimization: Whether for fleet owner or the operator, data can help with route optimization incorporating weather, traffic, ETA, seca and eca zones and  other factors like fuel change. With algorithm working on it on a well-defined optimized route can be charted out for the sailing. Having data coming in live and historical data can help in understanding the fuel consumption patterns, weather patterns and other data from navigational equipment of the ship can bring in data about the performance of the ship very voyage happening and helping operators to have comparative study of the single vessel or for the fleet.
4. Charter party agreement: Owners or charters can make their contracts can using data. Your fleet records can be managed on single platform with live data, and agreement KPI’s can be charted on those data terms. Knowing ME, AE, performance having data to prove the fuel consumption and maintenance records and spares replacement and performance data. These data collected from Engine room, Bridge and navigational equipment can add value in agreement making process and set KPI,s.  These data packets of every machinery from the ship are proving to be gold mine for the operators and charters and owners. One can monitor anytime if the KPI’s are maintained and every parameter for the ship can be added, tracked, monitored.
5. Predictive maintenance & PMS Schedules: We see ships are always sailing and needs to attend different port calls and deliver on tight schedules. Having a vessel down for maintenance or spare change, unplanned maintenance is huge loss for the owners and operators. Live data from machines and historical data of vessel performance will help the owners to plan. Predictive maintenance is taking charge over PMS as owners and operators are having ME, AE, Scrubbers and boilers monitored with different parameters one can have accurate and precise data to take action well in advance to avoid failure and downtime. With data available, maintenance dedicated to specific engine, pump or equipment can be carried out and avoid unwanted downtime and expense of spares maintenance and any serious fatality to the asset.

Data has always been driving important management decisions and now with the use of the various machine learning algorithms, this is becoming a driving force for the industry in setting the benchmark for the operations. Having one platform to tap data, analyze and monitor using different charts is important. One platform avoids data manipulation and creates transparency. Know more about what a multitenant platform can do.