The i4 Insight model is designed so that data can be available and collated to generate benefits for different stakeholders, including different departments within a shipping company but, more importantly, in the offices of shipping’s customers – the charterers. Visibility and transparency are its core principles.
The company is generating a whole arena of new opportunities for shipowners, charterers and service suppliers. Its success so far over its short four-year life focuses on breaking down the ‘silo’ approach to data management, enabling efficiencies in one business stream to generate additional benefits elsewhere, says an article published on Lloyd’s register website.
Business improvement
“We go to a potential client and ask individual departments to explain their operations and their efficiency aims,” Meltzner says. “We ask: ‘Please help us to understand your objectives, so that we can consider whether there are ways to achieve them that could be quicker or easier. Perhaps we can generate extra outcomes that could help your business.’
“Usually, there are. We aim to offer them an approach that uses data more efficiently so that all departments in a shipping company – the bunker team, the superintendents, the navigators, the accountants – can easily see improvements to operational metrics.”
Carbon profile
“This is an even greater focus now than it was a year ago,” Meltzner said. “Initiatives like the Sea Cargo Charter and the Poseidon Principles hold charterers and financiers to account as they are required to demonstrate their ESG credentials and the carbon efficiency of their sea transport operations.
“That’s why our Geneva hub is so important. It’s one of the key locations for many leading charterers who control large volumes of seaborne bulk cargo movements.” It also reveals why LR’s Shipping Markets Global Lead, Chris Hughes, based in Geneva, has seen a significant uptick in charterer enquiries in recent months.
“SCC and PP are important steps,” Meltzner continues, “but the IMO’s short-term requirements on the efficiency and carbon intensity of existing tonnage is a more immediate driver. Our alliance with bunker planning specialist, BunkerEx, is a key development in this context.”
BunkerEx, now integrated into the i4 Insight platform, provides real-time guidance on the best bunkering locations, including price and availability. The system provides up-to-the-minute information so that ship operators and/or charterers can decide on the most cost-effective locations to take on fuel, based on a vessel’s intended trading route.
The four P’s
“It’s a system designed for best price, best location,” Meltzner commented. “However, cheap bunkers may meet one objective but could lead to performance and maintenance issues during or after the charter. Our aim is to maximise all the potential benefits across procurement, price, performance and, of course, productivity.”
The BunkerEx integration follows earlier moves to integrate C-Map, Greensteam, FNT and Laros into the i4 platform. These companies provide electronic charts, voyage performance, condition monitoring, and remote monitoring services so that ship managers can make efficiency gains in these respective business streams.
Collaboration in action
Although the company is bound by tight confidentiality agreements, Meltzner offers two examples of recent achievements. “Geneva-based ‘Charterer A’ has initiated a digital transition programme,” he explains, “and they latched on to our ‘single essential source of truth’ mantra. They have asked us to analyse their existing bunker procurement to see whether a predictive model could be established to demonstrate the relative efficiencies of different vessels before they were fixed on certain trades.”
Apart from the direct benefits to the i4 Insight collaborative model, there are some additional spin-offs. Speed and consumption claims, for example, are often a significant cost centre for dry and liquid bulk shipowners, keeping hundreds of highly paid litigation lawyers constantly busy.
Ensuring the shipowners and their customers have access to the same information has the potential to knock out most of this major cost centre – possibly a big plus point for the finance team!
Summary
- The i4 Insight model is designed so that data can be available and collated to generate benefits for different stakeholders.
- The company is generating a whole arena of new opportunities for shipowners, charterers and service suppliers.
- BunkerEx, now integrated into the i4 Insight platform, provides real-time guidance on the best bunkering locations, including price and availability.
- The BunkerEx integration follows earlier moves to integrate C-Map, Greensteam, FNT and Laros into the i4 platform.
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Source: lr.org
