The practical approach to performance management

Written by Marine Log Staff

SPONSORED CONTENT: Marorka is the leading global provider of data-driven energy management and operational performance solutions for the international maritime industry. We enable our customers to reduce fuel consumption, cut emissions and improve fleet performance through digital products and managed services.

In the past few years there has been a lot of buzz around digitalization in the shipping industry. The focus has to great extent been on technologies like big data, AI, machine learning and others which few, if any, truly implement and are, in many cases, nothing more than marketing stunts. As implementation issues may be overwhelming for shipping companies, many of them tend to go for solutions for transmission of manually collected data from ship to shore.

Shipping companies which have truly been successful in digitalization of their activities have one thing in common: a practical solution-oriented approach. The overall goal of digitalization is to generate better information in a timely manner, which results in better decision making ultimately lowering cost and improving business results.

Data quality

Quality of data is essential in the overall context of digitalization and sensor data without any doubt outperforms the traditional noon reports which are subject to large errors, both due to the nature of the readings and human error but also problems related to frequency of readings and aggregation.

Hull performance: Managing hull performance is the most important factor in maintenance of efficiency and emissions from ships. Using automatically collected data the deterioration of hull & propeller performance may be detected in a timely manner, saving fuel worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The basic requirements is data from fuel flow and shaft power meters as well as navigational data.

An assorted practical approach is the way forward for the industry, relying on traditional data collection on board for older vessels or vessels expected to be in the fleet for limited time, implementing the measures required to ensure best possible outcome from the dataset available. For newer vessels, a moderate approach is installing sensors and logging unit focused on the essential measurements related to propulsion. For newbuilds, full data collection is a winning formula.

Marorka provides its customers actionable insights based on available data, regardless of origin, sensor data or manually reported. All data and analytics are available in a single online platform ensuring uniform view across different fleets with different data collection applications, sensor data, noon data or a mixture of both.

A practical and gradual path to digitalization opens multiple opportunities not only to reduce cost but also reduce the environmental footprint of operations. Performance and fuel efficiency will, with increased emphasis on environmental responsibility, become increasingly important. An appropriate approach to digitalization will determine who will be the winners in near future!