Applying a customer focus to digital-enabled services

The arrival of digital-enabled services is going to transform how the marine industry operates and ABS is taking a lead in the development of data-led services for the industry, Kashif Mahmood told The Motorship in an interview in London in January.

“The emergence of cloud-based services, the evolution of enterprise systems and the evolution of big data analytics have transformed businesses’ ability to process data,” Mahmood noted. The emergence of these solutions had coincided with the development of the internet and mobile telephony, which have transformed communications and data availability.

Looking ahead, Mahmood noted that this process will accelerate in the coming years: “the number of connected devices is expected to rise to 1 trillion by 2030”. This explosion in connectivity is expected to lead to a step change in data availability from the global fleet.

While the advent of devices with their own processing capabilities will remove cloud capacity as a bottleneck to the expansion of digital-enabled services, the transformation of the industry goes far beyond the emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT).

Advances in robotics and process automation will make semi-autonomous processes increasingly widely distributed across the fleet. The Motorship has reported recently on how semi-autonomous docking, or winch operation aboard trawlers, will lead to improvements in crew safety as well as reductions in lost working time. Further ahead, Mahmood expects to see autonomous vessels and functions enter the market. “These innovations will change the role of crew and captain aboard the vessel,” Mahmood noted.

3D printing will have wide ranging effects: if it leads to onshoring manufacturing, we may see alterations in trade flows, as semi-finished and finished goods are replaced by a resurgence in raw material imports. Blockchain, virtual or augmented reality and conversational computing are other technologies that will have significant effects within the current decade.

Turning to the uses of the data, Mahmood noted that “the data itself will become a source of competitive advantage for ship owners and ship operators.”

Declines in the cost of sensor technology will render data availability ubiquitous. “The quantity, the quality and the reliability of the data will be key drivers of operational insights.” Mahmood identified other industries that have achieved significant operational efficiencies, such as the upstream oil and gas industry. The Motorship notes that shale gas operators in the US have radically lowered their overheads in recent years, in part by adopting digital twins and predictive maintenance approaches.

Turning his attention back to the shipping industry, and how ABS is addressing the challenges and opportunities of digitalisation, Mahmood distinguished between the application of digital-enabled tools to classification, and the application of digital tools to support operational efficiency.

Mahmood cited e-certification and remote surveys as examples of the former. E-certification is accepted by over 50 flag states, streamlines administrative functions and ensures on-demand access for the latest documentation.

By accepting documentary evidence for Remote Surveys for a limited number of issues, including Tail Shaft Extension Surveys and Rectification of OSR and OSD cases, ABS helps minimise the operational impact of meeting class requirements. “In some cases, these eliminate operational downtime completely,” Mahmood noted.

ABS’s client-led mentality can also be seen in the development of digital-enabled services for customers. “We apply a digital start-up approach, with fast iterations and a compressed product development cycle, including continuous customer feedback to improve our outcomes.”

Mahmood cited the development of a new data-led service as an example of ABS’s client-led approach. The ABS Metocean Hindcast Data application, which combines accurate weather data with a vessel’s operational tolerances to identify the impact of operational performance on the vessel’s structure, was developed in response to a client request. “That service was developed in just a fortnight,” Mahmood said proudly. The solution was first deployed aboard Arista Shipping’s vessels in late 2019.

Other services, such as Performance Monitor, combine operational, maintenance and sensor data with a ship-specific model of over 30 of the vessel’s functions. The product allows real-time monitoring of a vessel or fleet, including the main engine and gensets, and includes an integrated user notification and alert system for failures or anomalies.

Mahmood noted that a particular focus for the team was delivering actionable insights for shipowners and operators. Rather than providing retrospective insight into why a failure has occurred, we are also working to deliver higher-order actionable insight by providing early failure indications before such a failure occurs.