Connectivity is also the driver behind maritime IoT adoption, which has accelerated over the past year. With the extreme challenges brought on by the global COVID-19 pandemic, connectivity has never been more important as commercial vessels adjust to rapidly changing situations and, in some situations, have shifted entirely to remote work.
Connectivity unlocks the power of maritime IoT and will create a competitive advantage for early adopters. IoT allows machine to machine transfer of data from onboard sensors to shore, for analysis, trouble-shooting, and remote expert involvement. A look at several maritime service models points to the future of what can be accomplished with maritime IoT:
- Equipment manufacturers are in the service of operational reliability, and field service costs can average US$5,000 per visit. When ports are closed or field service personnel is not allowed to board a vessel, IoT enables shore-side experts to conduct root cause assessments and send a software patch remotely. In the future, this service model will move beyond break/fix and expand into proactive maintenance and remote intervention.
- Ship managers are in the service of vessel availability, and downtime is a huge expense. IoT enables ship managers to better plan in advance to minimise time in port. In the future, cost-driven decisions will move to maximising days of availability as ship managers gain a clearer picture of the performance of every vessel real-time.
- Shipyards are in the service of system integration, with a small percentage of shipyards currently including service in their contracts. With maritime IoT, shipyards can service the equipment on board, remotely, ensuring all systems are performing as expected. This will allow them to shift from today’s focus on cost of asset to focus tomorrow on the total cost of ownership.
Maritime IoT will enable the future of business, and the sooner maritime parties adopt fully connected IoT solutions, the sooner they will be able optimise their overall performance and unlock future revenue streams. KVH has always been a leader in connectivity, and now is a leader in IoT connectivity as well with two solutions:
- For maritime equipment manufacturers, KVH Watch offers IoT Connectivity as a Service (CaaS), which is a secure dedicated IoT solution including Flow, for 24/7/365 remote monitoring using dedicated ship-to-shore bandwidth for data transfer, and Remote Expert Intervention, for real-time on-demand intervention session for video, voice, and text chat with data speeds as fast as 10/3 Mbps.
- For ship managers and shipyards, KVH offers superior VSAT solutions, including TracPhone V7-HTS and TracPhone V11-HTS which offer a unique dual channel configuration: an unlimited data channel, ideal for IoT monitoring and real-time data transfer, and a high-speed data channel, ideal for IoT remote video chat and tech support.
KVH can enable your business to accelerate its IoT solutions, which are so critical today and will be the future of the connected ship. Contact KVH to learn more about which solution works best for your business to enable the numerous benefits of maritime IoT, giving you a competitive advantage.