MAN 4-stroke eyes digital expansion

The Motorship: Thank you for agreeing to this interview, Bernd. Could you just give us an insight into your background and your journey into digitalisation.

Bernd Eberwein: I started in Augsburg in 2014, working in the Group Strategy team. When changed our focus and brand from MAN Diesel & Turbo to MAN Energy Solutions, I was happy to be able to be part of that.

I have been following digitalisation since 2016 when we began to develop our own perspective on digital, but I only began working for Digital directly in 2022 when I moved across from a Project Manager role.

MS: Would it be fair to say so your focus extends beyond engine management solutions, and includes a wider range of solutions that you’re that you’re working on for customers?

BE: From the four-stroke engine side, we are expanding our solutions as we increasingly learn what to do with data. So machine learning or Big Data analysis of data sets is challenging, but we are slowly and steadily getting there. I think the next two, three years, will get exciting. Also, because of course, we always plan to introduce new products.

MS: Alongside your plans for machine learning for data, there are also interesting developments in the field of high frequency data and and what you can do with that. It’s also improving your insight into what’s happening on individual assets or within individual cylinders within an existing engine.

BE: Absolutely, that’s the tightrope we are working with. On the one hand, we need to have high resolution data to do analysis. On the other hand, we don’t want to send gigabytes of data every day… so we need to find a balance. And here, I think we will gain from new types of transmitting data where every data point is compared with the previous data point. And if it’s close enough that it will not be transferred, because the property is not relevant. But if it’s far off, then it will trigger automatically a higher resolution data transmission. And that’s something which will help us on an asset basis and really on a cylinder basis, as you mentioned, without having to wait for the next data point, let’s say in one minute.

MS: But would it be fair to say that at the moment, you don’t need high frequency data to be transmitted on a sort of millisecond or fractions of a second basis at the moment?

BE: The high-frequency data is being used by the automation and control system, which is automatically giving out alerts or shutdowns, load reductions, whatever if something occurs. So yes, we in the cloud are mainly doing monitoring, but depending on the type of breakdown or issue there is, case by case, we need very, very detailed and fragmented data.

Predictive Maintenance

MS: This has been an interesting area of development, in terms of higher frequency data opening up opportunities for potentially even predictive maintenance solutions and so on. Presumably, that’s something on your list of priorities as well?

BE: Absolutely. We have begun pilots on predictive maintenance, meaning lifetime assessments, for a number of components already. We are looking at detailed assessments based on component level formulas, drawing upon granular data points. So we are getting there.

At the moment, we have already launched a pilot where we monitor the first two components in the system, but have not yet begun to offer a separate predictive maintenance product yet. If we see something, we advise the customer via our assistance and monitoring service. We aim to offer predictive maintenance for first components in 2024. Looking further into the future, we want to build on the data we receive to produce prolonged maintenance interval advice based on high-frequency data we receive.

MS: Are you focusing on your naval customers for these services or are you also looking at the commercial market?

BE: We are receiving strong interest from our cruise customers as well as our naval customers, both of whom have a strong interest in being able to improve their maintenance interval assessments for several core components within the engine.

Even though we’re not planning to formally launch these solutions until 2024 hopefully, we have already been in touch with some of our customers about these concepts. It is important to involve your customers early in the process in digital developments.

MS: In terms of your plan to roll out this solution, are you able to give any more detail about which particular elements of the engine you’re focusing on in the first launch?

BE: I don’t want to pre-empt our launch! And some decisions still need to be taken. But I want to add that, of course, it’s going to be a rollout component by component and small steps. Because we will be able to include feedback from customers when we’re rolling our subsequent components.

MS: Are you planning to make the solution applicable to existing engines as well as new orders, In terms of the engines that the solution will be compatible with?

BE: The solution will be applicable for all the engines where we have a connectivity solution. And that’s basically all or most engines from this millennium. It will not just be applicable to our very new engines, with our new generation control system. It will also be applicable for the installed fleet.

Value Propositions and Business Models

MS: In terms of the value proposition, how will customers benefit from adopting these services.

BE: In the end, customers will benefit from more tailored intervals. By understanding how customers are using their assets, we will be able to improve reliability and save unscheduled maintenance, because parts will not break down. And that’s the big value proposition here. And then if we can prolong maintenance intervals, because you run your engines smoothly and efficiently, you might have to exchange a certain part every 9000 hours instead of every 6000 hours. So depending on whether you choose condition based or predictive maintenance, you will see an improvement in either availability or opex costs.

MS: We have seen some interest in particular from the cruise market in different types of commercial models, such as power-as-a-service type contractual relationships. Is that part of your plans?

BE: Of course, new products might bring new business models and we are exploring these options.

Advanced Engine Management

MS: Do you think that the ability to compare actual operational data with test bed data might be able to improve the operational parameters of engines?

BE: Yes, we as the OEM have the unique position to not only get operational data from the asset, but to compare it with data from the testbed. And also to compare it with hundreds of other engines sending data. This dataset is invaluable in identifying issues and in directing our attention.

And then we want to take the next step with our Asset+ solution, which was announced in 2022, where we plan to take these operational learnings. In the future, we will be able to update and upgrade the control system software with the new generation four-stroke system. So we might learn that certain limits, we have set or certain thresholds have been maybe too conservative, or they’re just not state of the art anymore.

This means that we will be able to use the over the air update feature in our latest engine control system to update the control system, every time we learn something new. And every time there are updates in the future, we have that with this new generation. So we will be able to roll out these updates over the air.

With this new capability we will be able to keep our engines state-of-the art across the whole life cycle – in an efficient and simple manner. They will always incorporate the latest cyber security updates, parameters and more. Applying these updates over-the-air is new to the market and we’re excited about it.