Clear goals and leadership hold key to digital performance strategy

The webinar was the www.rivieramm.com/events?search=scoped&topics=Webinars" target="_blank" rel="noopener">third in Riviera Maritime Media’s Vessel Optimisation Webinar Week, part of our ongoing series of webinars.

Van Oord director digital transformation Mare Straetmans, Startup Wharf founder and managing director Leonardo Zangrando, DNV GL business/segment director, special ships Arnstein Eknes and VAF Instruments director R&D Erik van Ballegooijen debated the key factors needed to master a digital performance strategy and how to overcome hurdles.

Mr Straetmans underlined the importance of transformation and leadership. “What I see with a lot of the leadership I work with in different companies is it is still difficult to understand what digitalisation is and what it can mean.”

He said leadership in a digital age needs to encompass factors including hyperawareness, informed decision making and fast execution.

A poll carried out among webinar attendees showed the importance attached to how much company leadership should know about digital, with 48% agreeing leaders should be the frontrunners in specialist understanding.

Mr Straetmans also emphasised the importance of aiming for big gains – he said Van Oord only does projects where it thinks it can make a 50% increase in efficiency or an impact for customers.

Mr Eknes singled out both the impact of Covid-19 and the major oversupply of oil on digitalisation strategies.

“The pandemic is forcing us to work differently… it is forcing us to kickstart webinars and be digital, that balance is a perfect time to reflect on what are the things to learn from at this time and bring with us a new behaviour.”

He said before companies started using a digital toolbox, they need to think about why they want to change and on a top level, know the business case.

Mr Zangrando talked about how maritime companies can harness the innovation of start-ups to help them create a digital performance strategy.

But he warned a start-up is not just a small version of a normal supplier, therefore woking with them involves a “complete overhaul” of how companies normally engage with suppliers.

When asked in a poll about whether they would consider working with start-ups on digital strategy, 70% of webinar attendees said yes.

Elsewhere, Mr van Ballegooijen said “Our recommendations for the implementation of a digital strategy for propulsion improvement performance is to define a clear goal and start with low hanging fruit.”

This includes using quality sensors, data collection and office analysis. Once experience has been gained with low-hanging fruit, additional sensors and analysis can be used which provide more benefits.

He added “When choosing such a propulsion management solution, it is important to have good quality and quantity of data. Our experience is that only once-a-day noon reports do not do the job - you really need to go for real-time sensor measurements.”

A poll carried out among webinar delegates showed many agreed; when asked what data source they use for the vessel/fleet to optimise vessel performance, 55% opted for automatic sensor data versus 45% for noon reports.

In another poll that asked which goal respondents would use digital solutions for vessel performance optimisation, a near two-thirds majority (66%) chose fuel cost reductions.

A final poll asking whether respondents were satisfied with the digital strategy of their company, saw only 13% say they were. A majority of 55% said that, while their company had begun a digital strategy, there was a long way to go, 20% said that they had only just started and 11% said they do not have a dedicated digital strategy.

You can view the webinar, in full, in our webinar library.

And you can sign up to attend upcoming webinars on our events page.