Seaspan Shipyards teams up with four Canadian tech companies

Seaspan Shipyards team is joined by representatives from Gastops, BCS Automation, 3GA Marine at Seaspan's HoloShip

Canada’s Seaspan Shipyards has awarded three contracts, totaling approximately CAD 2.6 million, to enable four Canadian companies to advance marine industry digitalization and further modernize shipbuilding and fleet maintenance.

In March 2022, Seaspan launched its HoloShip platform, an immersive visualization system that allows designers, engineers, production teams, and customers to virtually experience a fully detailed, three-dimensional, and accurate digital model of a vessel, using an integrated 5.6-meter-wide display wall and virtual reality headsets.

The HoloShip platform and the projects now being announced are part of Seaspan Shipyards’ value proposition commitments under Canada’s National Shipbuilding Strategy. In addition to providing funding, Seaspan will give the four companies — Gastops, BCS Automation, 3GA Marine and Kognitiv Spark access to its HoloShip platform and to its decades of shipbuilding expertise and use cases.

Seaspan is supporting these specific projects:

• BCS Automation (Ontario) is developing a cutting-edge solution that represents a ship’s control and monitoring system. This system will be made available through a virtual interface that aims to improve vessel design and reduce the vessel’s overall life cycle cost. Through this project, BCS Automation seeks to create a powerful digital tool and push the boundaries in predictive digital twins.

• Gastops (Ontario) is developing a digital twin solution that aims to optimize vessel maintenance and performance by proactively identifying and quantifying vessel equipment performance and maintenance issues before they reach a critical stage. Through this project, Gastops seeks to develop a cutting-edge predictive maintenance solution that can be applied to newly built vessels during both the design and operational phases and build out their tools and offerings for marine propulsion systems. It is envisioned that this type of offering would enable customers to save time and money by leveraging innovative sensing and simulation techniques to identify pervasive propulsion system issues with sufficient notice, providing an opportunity to schedule repair and maintenance when vessels are in planned periods of docking.

• 3GA Marine (British Columbia) and Kognitiv Spark (New Brunswick) are collaborating to develop an innovative mixed reality solution with an aim to allow onboard vessel operators to visualize and control ship systems and equipment from anywhere. The technology provides users with real-time customizable digital information, enabling operators to access essential technical data in a mixed reality environment. This solution aims to increase simplicity, safety, and efficiency in operating processes by enhancing the decision-making capabilities of engineers, the speed at which they can access information, and the implementation of customized predictive maintenance routines and associated software integration tools. The project, says Seaspan Shipyards, “is set to revolutionize the marine industry by enhancing ships control, monitoring and maintenance bringing it closer to a future of autonomous operations.”