DIGITALISATION
DIGITALISATION: LINES OF COMMUNICATION Let’s start with the obvious. “Data is valuable,” says Eero Lehtovaara of ABB Marine & Ports. Gone is the utopian idea that it should be freely available. And that can make for a tussle about who gets to do what. Taking a single example, one supplier “refused to allow their data to be used on our engine performance monitoring platform”, relates Carmelo Cartalemi of WinGD. In a fairly classic case of cart-before-horse, he says they were “more interested in putting our data on their system”. Although that was equitably resolved, the current situation has given rise to “ambitious” OEMs, he says, “which can make collaboration a little challenging, each wanting to protect their data and sell their own solution”. Further, while it’s possible to take lessons from other industries, shipping involves a far higher number of stakeholders and manufacturers says Jonas Åkerman of Wärtsilä: “There are about as many platforms as there are OEMs.” The result is a complicated and uncoordinated view of the onboard equipment. Against this backdrop, Lehtovaara is leading a newly launched initiative by CIMAC which the organisation describes as ‘consolidating the vision’ on the digitalisation of power and propulsion. As he explains, “at present, although standardisation is high on the agenda, currently there is very little in the way of integrating modern onboard technology”. It does have an impact: “At the moment we are building engine rooms and bridges that are unnecessarily complex because we’re trying to extract data from proprietary systems and interfaces,” he says. This leads to duplication of processes and inconsistencies in the presented information. Lehtovaara admits “we have clients and crew becoming irritated about getting a variety of responses depending on which way they ask a question of the shipboard systems”. As a result, Dmitry Kisil of WestP&I, who’s experience comes from a technical superintendent role as well as a ‘hands on’ user, adds: “If you ask a ship’s master or chief engineer, do you want the latest digital version or a crowbar, he’ll usually say, ‘the crowbar’.” It’s not that surprising. As Stam Achillas of ABB Turbocharging says, “as an industry we are still in the early stages of digitalisation”, adding the real value of these solutions “comes when companies can access data ‘beyond’ their own equipment, enhancing their diagnostics and advisory capabilities together with partners”. Collaboration is, therefore “a necessity”. Much has already changed: take the “broad acceptance of condition-based monitoring and predictive maintenance”, says Åkerman. As a result, rather than merely dealing in lumps of steel, the big engine manufacturers have, as MAN ES points out, moved “towards a service and solutions offering based on measurable and manageable performance”. But from that arises the question about who holds the keys. Certainly, many believe a common ecosystem is necessary, and a lot of OEMs have rushed to provide one.
24 | NOVEMBER 2020
Image: DNV GL
Digitalisation promises to be nothing short of transformative for shipping, but at the same time many of its multifaceted challenges are particular to the industry - and require breaking new ground
However, Åkerman’s colleague, Frank Velthuis, adds that there’s been a recent wake-up call: “We now have no illusion that ours will be THE platform that gets everyone onboard,” he admits. Instead, he says, “more and more fleet owners say they want to have control over the data themselves”. And that is sorting out the old nugget of who owns the information: ship owners are increasingly clear they do. So OEMs are generally turning their attention round to making their packages work on other people’s systems. It requires “some complex work on the interfaces,” says Cartelemi: “Of course, we believe ours should be the standard, but then, so do all the others.” At the same time, there are pitfalls: fleet owners’ new ‘doit-yourself’ approach can lead into expensive blind alleys: “no-one needs parallel developments in a 100 different companies”, says Velthuis. The answer, he believes, is to buy in more general services, like CBM, and save the budget for specialised or unique systems. And then, be focused: “Think first about what it is that you want to achieve, and how you are going to do that,” he advises: “Start with the end in mind - and take a staged approach: make sure you really do have the value there before you pursue it.” However, third-party cloud platforms may be able to offer a different type of solution. For example, Houlder, (which is about to enter the market) aims to liberate ship operation, raising efficiency “without a lock-in to a specific vendor”, says Arun Pillai. To be clear, it’s not just about remote diagnostics. While a remote overview is valuable - and decentralised data analysis from shore may indeed be the long-term future - Houlder’s platform can also act as the glue between separate shipboard elements, explains Pillai’s colleague, David Hugh. By direct application of nicely cooked and sliced information it could, for example, refine the response between engine and CP propellers or other systems. That is a significant step in itself. But the possibilities reach even further: Pillai adds that platforms like these promise to redefine how onboard power is utilised by helping rationalise and smooth out peak loads, raising efficiency and lowering both OPEX and CAPEX.
8 Efficiency requires integrating systems from multiple suppliers
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