The last 50 years have seen more technological advancements coming into use by the shipping industry. Mechanical improvements have been made gradually as the industry evolves, but innovative technical solutions have rapidly been finding their way into use within the last decade.
Modern advancements and digital technologies have made vast strides in marine operations, changing some of the most basic functions of the industry and creating more efficient, lower costs systems around the world.
How has technology fuelled the advancement of marine shipping?
5 ways marine shipping operations are evolving
1. Efficient navigation and fuel consumption
Before the introduction of connectivity-centered technology, marine navigation on ships was not as efficient as it is today. Whereas today's ships can take any number of variables into account such as the weather, shipping routes, GPS positioning, and water currents, it took more manual navigational skills to get older ships to the right place.
Fuel costs are one of the largest single operating costs in the industry. Navigation is one of the key factors in fuel consumption. Ships that can find the calmest, smoothest routes when hauling their cargo around the ocean will use the least amount of fuel possible. In addition to the routes used, ships with enhanced navigational systems can benefit from automatic adjustments to propulsion that will lower fuel usage.
2. Enhanced management of large fleets
Computerized systems are able to give an operator instant access to real-time information about all the vessels in a company's fleet. All of the data collected from the fleet can be used to increase overall productivity by allowing managers to easily finding weak spots and inefficiencies in the operation and fix them.
3. Improved vessel design and testing
Modern shipping vessels are subjected to a series of testing and analytics before they are created. Designs can now be made, digitally modeled, and tested in any number of situations before they are physically created. Such software modeling has allowed for greater performance by giving engineers the chance to make changes and see the effects of those changes almost instantaneously before making the actual physical products. This cuts down on the time used to build each new design of ship and improves the performance efficiency of the ships that are produced.
4. Fewer instances of unplanned downtime
Downtime on any sea vessel can end up costing a lot to the company. Every unplanned outage onboard a vessel may cost thousands, or even millions of dollars in lost time. Software tools like predictive analytics are able to find trends in vessel equipment that can signify when the devices may fail in the future. This allows the vessel operators to predict when failures may occur so that maintenance can be scheduled when it's actually needed rather than at regular time intervals.
5. Constant digital monitoring systems
In the shipping industry there can be a skills gap created when older, experienced workers retire and leave the reins to younger workers. Monitoring systems collect enough data from fleets and individual vessels to help bride that skills gap for newer workers to do their jobs effectively.
Additionally, these systems bring any problems and anomalies to the attention of personnel on shore so that issues can be solved proactively rather than reactively.
Further advancements in marine operations
As time goes on, technologies change and evolve into better versions of themselves. These changes can take some time before they reach shipping vessel, but the time between improvements is reducing as digital technologies become more useful and easier to adapt to modern vessels.
We don't know what is in store for marine tech in the future, but it's safe to say that many of these advancements will help to ensure lower shipping costs for all vessels and greater monitoring capabilities for operators.
Written using source material provided by General Electric
