Op-Ed: Asset management vital for aging global fleet

Adam Dennett

By Adam Dennett, CEO, SpecTec

With the age of vessels at a 40-year high ship owners and operators need to act now and use asset management technology combined with a culture of safety to ensure the ongoing integrity of their vessels and the welfare of their crews.

The plight of seafarers over the past five years has been—quite rightly—well documented. From the isolation and lack of front-line worker status during the pandemic, to the increased and ongoing mental and physical health challenges that they face. In addition, the drive for decarbonization, more regulation, the move to new sources of energy and the uptake of digitalization and technology, are presenting increased complexity, risk and safety challenges. It is a tough operating environment for those that are physically charged with keeping global trade moving efficiently.

In line with this, it is particularly concerning to know that as we enter a period of dynamic change for the maritime industry, the global commercial fleet is the oldest it has been for over 40 years, with the average vessel age at 17.4 years. While there may be a commercial rationale to expanding the lifetime of a vessel, it is having a significant impact on safety and efficiency within the maritime supply chain; exemplified in the recent DNV annual maritime safety report for 2025, which makes for sobering reading. 

According to DNV, in 2024 over half of all safety incidents involved vessels aged 20 years or older. Casualties to crew increased by 358 from 2023 to 2024, with 285 incidents involving ships over 25 years old. Eighty-three percent of these incidents were down to machinery damage or failure; often due to preventable issues such as improper lubrication, undetected wear or just skipped inspections. Fundamentally, it highlights the critical link between aging hardware and breakdowns and the real need for properly funded and effectively implemented maintenance plans and regular inspection schedules.

What is clear, is that this issue is not going to go away. The reality is that many vessels in this aging commercial fleet were built to standards and technologies of a different era. As they continue operating past their intended lifespans, they face greater risks from structural fatigue, obsolete systems, and limited compatibility with modern safety solutions. On top of this, as the industry looks to meet its decarbonization targets in a future fuels world, and with many vessels predicted to use clean energy such as ammonia, which is highly toxic, the potential negative ecological and safety challenges in the event of equipment or machinery damage becomes even more significant and catastrophic.

But, it doesn’t need to be this way. Proven technology exists to solve these problems, and we have seen asset and maintenance management software hugely develop over the past few years in line with the industry’s continued digitalization. At SpecTec, what we’re seeing in forward-thinking ship owners and operators is the move from time-based to condition-based maintenance, using real-time data and advanced monitoring to anticipate and prevent issues happening before failures actually occur.  It is this early detection that prevents small faults turning into major issues that can impact the safety and welfare of the crew and vessel, as well as cause significant expense in costly downtime.

For example, at SpecTec, with over 40 years of experience in shipping, we developed AMOS, the industry’s most widely used asset management solution, supporting some of the industry’s leading ship owners and operators and approved by seven major classification societies. AMOS provides a fully integrated overview of a customer’s fleet. While there are a host of modules within the system, AMOS’s maintenance module, enables customers to plan and document maintenance tasks, report and deal with unexpected maintenance issues, and continually monitor the condition of equipment to predict maintenance needs and prevent failures. Data analytics can also be used to evaluate maintenance performance and implement improvements, and maintenance procedures can also be standardized and controlled across other assets to ensure consistency and efficiency. 

Fundamentally, it gives ship owners and operators real control of their most valuable assets and sets new standards for safety, reliability and efficiency. And the results are tangible, with downtime and associated costs reduced by 15%, and equipment failures being reduced by 70%.

In conjunction with this, while the technology is critical, for it to be truly optimized and effective, it is also vital that there is an attitudinal shift in mindset for safety standards to be properly enforced and the benefits realized; integrating the human element alongside technological advancements to significantly improve safety outcomes. It needs to be driven from the leadership, where safety is championed from the top so that it is embedded in the culture of the organization. On top of this there needs to be proper training for crews, so that they are engaged and confident in using the technology effectively and where there is an environment of accountability. It is about combining the two critical pillars of technology to drive the proactive maintenance of critical assets with a people-driven culture of onboard safety.

Ultimately, while shipping is facing seismic change it cannot come at the expense of the welfare of seafarers—the very lifeblood of the industry—that are driving it. While increasingly old vessels are a reality of the current global commercial fleet, ship owners and operators must consequently and urgently adapt their operations to ensure the highest levels of safety standards for their aging assets.  There can be no compromises, and when the technology exists to help, there can also be no excuses.