Passenger ship operators are using digitalisation for improving ship performance, monitoring machinery, reducing costs and enhancing guest experiences
Passenger ship operators are using digitalisation for improving ship performance, monitoring machinery, reducing costs and enhancing guest experiences
Cruise ship and ferry operators are trailblazers in driving shipping towards a digital future. They are utilising the largest bandwidth in the shipping industry for communications and data transmissions. This is delivering information for analysis so that owners and shipmanagers can improve services to passengers, manage operating costs, conduct condition-based maintenance and reduce the environmental footprint of ships.
For V.Group, digitalisation has become an important pillar of its business as it manages superyachts, cruise ships and ferries. V.Group director of marine operations in the leisure sector, Per Bjornsen said digitalisation will be increasingly important for the efficient operation of passenger ships.
“Digitalisation is a game-changer in how we work as shipmanagers,” he told Passenger Ship Technology. “Digitalisation has become an important pillar of what we are offering, so good communications are critical for our business. Cost savings are from better insight of operations and from more efficiency.”
V.Group offers its ShipSure digital platform as part of its technical management of passenger ships. This has four modules covering procurement, marine operations, crewing and finance. It is cloud-based with online access to applications and interfaces for mobile devices and desktop computers, said Mr Bjornsen.
“Digitalisation is a game-changer in how we work as shipmanagers”
“People involved in vessel management are always on the move and can keep in touch with their operations using ShipSure at any time,” he explained. “We have given customers access to mobile applications and the feedback has been very positive from users.”
V.Group has provided ShipSure to Saga Travel & Cruises for use across its management teams. Saga chief executive officer Robin Shaw expressed his positive feedback to V.Group from this experience.
“We are pleased and excited to be trialling the ShipSure mobile app,” he said. “My team now have immediate access to important vessel safety, purchasing and performance information and ShipSure is proving an invaluable tool.” Saga Travel & Cruises operates two ships, Saga Pearl II and Saga Sapphire, and has two on order – Spirit of Discovery due to be delivered in 2019 and Spirit of Adventure in 2020.
“My team now have immediate access to important vessel safety, purchasing and performance information”
By applying ShipSure, cruise ship owners can focus on other aspects such as hotel operations and customer experiences, “while we manage crewing and technical aspects of shipmanagement” said Mr Bjornsen.
“Key is the transparency and easy access to information in real-time, such as ship position, status and crew,” he explained. “Efficiency comes from the level of predictive health of the vessel and its machinery.” This enables owners to track operational performance and perform condition-based maintenance.
“The combination of this information is a very strong tool to maintain ships more effectively and to assure a safe, resilient and efficient operation, said Mr Bjornsen. “It is critical to have no downtime and have reliable information on system health and maintenance.”
Mechanics of digitalisation
ShipSure links stakeholders and facilitates teamwork through seamless interfacing. “It has easy access, is transparent and is building on an existing system that has been upgraded with new interfaces and mobile applications,” said Mr Bjornsen.
It has one database so there is no duplication of information, while data can be compressed and profiled to work across a variety of communications systems from L-band to VSAT.
The procurement module includes requisitions, purchase orders, invoicing, delivery planning, links to supplier portals and authorisation applications. It means superintendents can authorise procurement requests through mobile applications. “New to this is customer access to all procurement and operations data for transparency and an understanding of what is happening in real-time,” said Mr Bjornsen.
ShipSure Marine includes inventory management and planned maintenance. It is integrated with risk, safety and environmental management, inspections and analysis. “This all in turn integrates with ship ISM and certification and vessel performance information,” said Mr Bjornsen.
The crewing module includes applications for seafarers to access details on certification, joining information and the ship they are serving on. There are also applications for shipmanagers and owners covering crew lists, contracts, payroll, personnel and training details.
Finance is for monitoring and managing ship financial performance in real-time with reports and for verifying performance including procurement and operating costs.
Data platform
Kongsberg Digital offers its data platform, Kognifai, to passenger ship operators that want to progress their digitalisation strategies. Kongsberg is in the middle of an operations optimisation project with a ferry owner that operates a large fleet and wants to introduce more autonomous operations.
Data processing and analysis is at the heart of digitalisation in shipping, said Kongsberg vice president and commercial manager for Kognifai Vigleik Takle. He added that shipowners use data analytics for reducing operating expenditure and data co-ordination for greater transparency.
“In the future of digitalisation in passenger shipping, we believe most efforts will be centred around optimisation of operations with the desired result being higher profitability, reducing risks and increased sustainability,” he told PST. “There are a lot of synergies and the need for seamless integration, with closer collaboration between on board and onshore.”
There are three core offerings in Kognifai:
Mr Takle said passenger ship owners can use Kognifai to develop more automated processes from navigating short ferry crossings, to e-procurement and automated ticketing. Kongifai aggregates data across multiple sources, such as sensors on board, data from business systems, internal control systems and third party data sources.
“We believe most efforts will be centred around optimisation of operations with the desired result being higher profitability, reducing risks and increased sustainability”
“On top of the data platform we have a marketplace with a large range of applications that allows our customers to transform their data into value,” he said. These applications use the latest technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, cognitive computing and blockchain.
“AI is for asset lifecycle operations, equipment monitoring, predicting failure and repair requirements and ordering spare parts for this,” said Mr Takle. Kongsberg also provides cyber security for Kognifai applications. “When dealing with critical assets, cyber security is vital, as you do not want a passenger ship to be hacked and crashed into a busy port,” said Mr Takle.
Vital communications
Ship-to-shore communications is a critical requirement for digitalisation processes in passenger shipping. It is almost always available for ship operations on cruise ships and ferries because of the need for ship operators to provide broadband communications to passengers.
This culminated with MSC Cruises breaking the bandwidth at sea record at the end of 2017 using Marlink’s VSAT services on MSC Seaside. This bandwidth was mostly used for a short period of passenger social media connectivity, but can also be used for operational requirements.
Demand for bandwidth on cruise ships is growing exponentially due to the large amount of passengers with expectations of internet availability, said Marlink president of maritime Tore Morten Olsen. Demand is also coming from owners wanting vessel and fleet operations optimisation.
“The reach of digitalisation is being expanded beyond improving logistics and fleet management into a more interpersonal arena,” he said. “It is becoming more about making each passenger’s experience as personalised and as individualised as possible.”
Digitalisation enables owners to keep far better track of each passengers’ whereabouts to improve “both passenger safety and the cruise lines’ ability to offer improved cruise experiences for each passenger on board”.
“Cruise lines are also able to tailor the cruising experience to guest preferences, making sure that all of their needs are met,” said Mr Olsen. He expects those that can use digitalisation “will be able to differentiate themselves in this very competitive market”.
They can mine data for guest likes and dislikes, and preferences for different ships and destinations, which supports marketing and improves the cruising holiday experience. “The data can come from the booking process or through guest interaction with digital services on board,” Mr Olsen continued. “The data is used to understand how to develop the cruise experience for the future.”
E-procurement
Digitalisation introduces new methods of purchasing goods, products and services for passenger ships. It enables e-procurement processes for onboard operators and fleet managers. One of the recent additions to maritime e-procurement is Moscord, which was officially launched in April this year.
Moscord founder and chief executive Freddy Ingemann thinks his service is a maritime version of Amazon’s e-procurement program. He expects shipping companies will benefit from having a sales channel, procurement platform and last-mile delivery in one marketplace.
“Shipowners will know where the product came from and can guarantee they get branded equipment, such as electric motors, and get what they buy,” he said. “Prices are lower as ship operators buy direct from manufacturers or industry wholesalers and we aim to have 20% lower prices on ship supply.”
“Shipowners will know where the product came from and can guarantee they get branded equipment”
Since setting up Moscord in Q4 2017, Mr Ingemann has continued adding suppliers, manufacturers and delivery partners to the service. “We upload their products on the marketplace and organise deliveries at ports around the world,” he said. “We take care of product consolidation and pricing, provide ship catalogues and will integrate with existing procurement software so onboard engineers can procure products.”
IT infrastructure for cruise ships
Lufthansa Industry Solutions has equipped cruise ships operated by Crystal River Cruises with IT infrastructure, digital onboard entertainment and smart cabin control systems. The first of a five-ship series of new river cruise ships, Crystal Mozart, carried out its maiden voyage in Q3 2016 on the Danube River, in eastern Europe.
Crystal Mozart was equipped with onboard wifi, a network for monitoring and controlling ship utilities and a centralised IT system. This network controls the lighting, door locks, air conditioning and security camera (CCTV) systems in a single network structure. CCTV is mandatory on cruise ships to ensure safety during voyages.
This centralised IT infrastructure means Crystal River Cruises can integrate, monitor and manage systems from third-party providers. It can also improve performance of onboard services and market activities to passengers.
Snapshot CV
V.Group’s Per Bjornsen
Per Bjornsen has 26 years of experience in ship operations, commercial management and shipbroking. He began his maritime career in 1992 as a shipbroker with Bigard Le Grand in Paris, France. By the end of that year he joined Brax Shipping in Sweden and had three years there as a shipbroker.
Mr Bjornsen had two more years as a shipbroker with RS Platou in Oslo, Norway and then took a different direction by joining V.Ships in Monaco in 1997 as a commercial director. He has remained with V.Ships since then, becoming director of marine operations in the leisure sector in 2015. He graduated from the Oslo Business School in 1990 and then completed a maritime law qualification at the University of Oslo in 1996.
Finferries set to test autonomous ferry technology
Finnish passenger shipping group Finferries has signed a collaboration agreement with Rolls-Royce to jointly demonstrate remote and autonomous ferry operations. They will together develop strategies to optimise the safety and efficiency of marine operations by developing the technology for decision supporting systems.
Rolls-Royce and Finferries intend to implement the findings from the Advanced Autonomous Waterborne Applications research project, which finished at the end of 2017. These technologies will be considered in a new research project: Safer Vessel with Autonomous Navigation.
Finferries chief executive officer Mats Rosin expects there to be multiple benefits to its business and passengers from deepening its collaboration with Rolls-Royce. “We want to actively take part in ventures where cutting-edge technology is utilised to increase the safety in maritime operations,” he said.
Finferries will provide a ship as a testbed to demonstrate Rolls-Royce’s decision support technology, possibly its intelligent awareness product. Rolls-Royce has already tested its intelligent awareness system on a Stena Line ship in the North Sea and this is being trialled on a Mitsui OSK Lines passenger ferry in Japan.
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