Innovate to improve margins 

Sensor packages

These prognosis solutions require packages of sensors. A propulsion monitoring system integrates real-time fuel consumption and maritime condition monitoring with cloud storage and analysis applications, according to VAF Instruments director of research and development Erik van Ballegooijen.

By installing fuel monitoring sensors on ships, owners can replace noon reports with real-time monitoring. “It is good to go for automatic data collection, to show this data on board and to store this information in the cloud,” he said.

Data can be displayed on board for crew to make immediate performance improvements before being analysed by VAF, a third party or the owner to identify trends across the fleet.

“Once in the cloud, you can do a lot of additional things, like data enrichment, creating key performance indicators and long-term trend visualisation,” said Mr van Ballegooijen.

Shipping companies and technical experts can access cloud-stored data to analyse fuel consumption across fleets of ships and add information from other sources.

“You can get external data, like weather data, or you might also have your own business intelligence tools,” he continued.

These resources can be connected to propulsion management tools or sent to charterers for analysis. “Exchanging and combining data is valuable for analysis,” said Mr van Ballegooijen. “It is also important to find the quick wins and know which data is immediately relevant.”

For propulsion performance management it is important to have a minimum dataset, including real-time measurements of fuel consumption from flow meters on the fuel supply lines. Other measurements could include speedlogs, GPS and ship draught. External condition information can include wind, wave and current data from onboard sensors or external databases.

This information can be fed into a cloud system such as VAF’s IVY propulsion management solution that uses Microsoft Azure for data cloud storage and applications.

“With this minimum dataset, you can create ship-speed and fuel consumption curves,” said Mr van Ballegooijen. Shipowners and operators can “create baselines and see improvements or why things are going wrong” to decide how to optimise operations further.

Health management

Kongsberg Maritime is introducing a Health Management application to its Vessel Insight portfolio of services. This can be used to monitor onboard equipment via one unified interface allowing operators to use the data to predict failures through detecting abnormal behaviour early.

It will initially support Bergen engines, Kongsberg’s low-pressure hydraulic winches, rotating machinery, third-party thrusters, pods, shaftlines and auxiliaries.

Kongsberg intends to add more equipment to the system in a planned roll-out during the rest of this year and into 2021.

Health Management will use a continuous flow of machinery condition and performance reports to facilitate intelligent maintenance planning to increase reliability and reduce operational expenditure and equipment downtime.

Kongsberg Maritime vice president for analytics and fleet operations Jan Chirkowski said this application extends equipment lifetime and keeps vessels working.

“By continually appraising machinery condition, Health Management allows customers to spot the early onset of a failure and continue operation with the affected equipment under observation,” Mr Chirkowski said.

“Maintenance needs can be planned in advance when most convenient for the customer, spare parts ordered, and vessel downtime scheduled as necessary,” he said. “Any downtime is minimised, and the vessel is returned to operation as swiftly as possible. The net result is to maximise profitability.”

ABB Turbocharging has introduced a continuous evaluation function to add to the insights delivered by its Tekomar Xpert engine performance diagnostics software.

The software uses engine data and edge computing for monitoring, reporting and advisory capabilities.

“Continuous evaluation allows for the cloud-to-cloud transfer of engine data from edge computing platforms to Tekomar Xpert,” said ABB Turbocharging product manager Pascal Reolon. “The result will be faster access to more engine data from which to draw even quicker insights to optimise engine performance.”

This enables ABB to offer remote continuous performance evaluation, with instant comparison of an engine’s current performance with its digital twin, from which Tekomar Xpert draws advice for optimising performance, for greater accuracy, additional reporting and reduced crew workloads.

Mare Straetmans (Van Oord) presented his views during the ‘How to develop and implement a digital performance strategy to optimise vessel performance’ webinar on 14 May

Kevin Daffey (Rolls-Royce Power Systems) spoke at the ‘How COVID-19 will transform your vessel operations over the next 24 months’ webinar on 20 May.

Connectivity enables real-time IoT solutions

Connectivity between ships and shore is vital for IoT applications and the more bandwidth set aside for this the better. KVH Industries has expanded its VSAT-based maritime IoT service with new offerings for remote monitoring and real-time intervention. It has added to its KVH Watch IoT connectivity as a service, which was unveiled in 2019, with a remote expert intervention service.

KVH Watch is an independent conduit for data to flow outside of the vessel’s primary satellite communications system. Its new remote expert intervention is an optimised video collaboration application, designed to enable on-demand high-throughput remote support sessions between crew and experts on shore.

This enables seafarers to access real-time guidance from equipment experts for troubleshooting, repair, and identification of replacement parts.

“Remote expert intervention goes well beyond simply monitoring the performance of onboard equipment,” said KVH senior director for IoT business development Sven-Eric Brooks. “It enables maritime equipment manufacturers to take action and provide real-time support via video, voice and text, even when the equipment is on a vessel in the middle of the ocean.”

Inmarsat is adding more partners to its ecosystem of applications and opened more capacity over Fleet Xpress Ka-band service for IoT solutions. This is through Fleet Data, Fleet Connect and Fleet Edge. Inmarsat vice president for merchant shipping Gert-Jan Panken said Fleet Data enables operators to “offload IoT data so shipowners and managers can improve operations of vessels through fuel efficiency, chart updates and compliance in regulatory zones”.

Fleet Connect provides bandwidth for third parties to remotely connect to vessels. “It is for video conferencing with chief engineers, used for remote access to IT and for monitoring,” said Mr Panken.

Fleet Edge is a service gateway on the vessel for hosting virtual machines and deploying software on vessels. “This reduces the need for investing in IT services,” said Mr Panken. Shipping companies and application providers can host services on this onboard server.

“Coronavirus has accelerated the application of digitalisation and IT services, of remote surveys and video calling – this is the new normal for data use,” said Mr Panken.

KNL Networks has partnered with Flicq Inc for remote vessel monitoring through radiocommunications. This combines Flicq’s SmartEdge sensors that are attached magnetically to equipment for real-time condition monitoring. These sensors collate data and process it using algorithms to extract actionable insights.

Information is transmitted to KNL’s Connect device, which then transmits these insights to the crew via the onboard network, and to fleet owners onshore via KNL’s pole-to-pole network.

Marlink introduced a simplified IT monitoring tool in May, enabling shoreside teams or administrators to view the IT system status and availability, providing visibility on compliance with regulatory and charterer requirements. This is part of Marlink’s full ITLink suite of services for remote fleetwide monitoring of shipboard servers, computers and operating systems.