The maritime industry is exploring the opportunities offered by digital technologies. With standardization options like operational optimization, model calibration for digital twins, design optimization, and other such applications, the shipping industry can digitally transform to fully scalable products. Demonstrations and pilots are already underway but some industry stalwarts question its necessity.
“With the rise of the Internet of Things in shipping, we believe that many stakeholders can benefit from developing a standardization strategy to take advantage of a more digital maritime industry”, said Pierre Sames, the Group Technology and Research Director at DNV GL’s. “Standards are used in many industries to advance efficiency, safety, and environmental performance,” he added.
A new position paper by the DNV GL focuses on the collection of ship sensor data. As we collect more data, exchange them regularly and prepare for its use – the origin, quality level, context and legal status become less transparent, resulting in the reduction of its usage by end users. However, an increased sensor data availability ensures an efficient way of collecting both existing and new types of data.
“Too much time is spent matching and structuring different systems, while data collection products from different vendors often have incompatible outputs – making it difficult to combine the data from multiple systems. This makes the processes less efficient and more difficult for shipowners to obtain a complete picture of a vessel or their fleet”, says Steinar Lag, Senior Researcher in Maritime Transport at DNV GL, looking at the results of many digitalization demonstrations and pilot projects. Technical barriers are the reason behind such problems in data flow and usage. Standardising the 6 key areas is the ideal solution. Ship data models, sensor naming and referencing, maritime taxonomies and code books, sensor metadata, shipboard data recorder, sensor quality and reliability are the areas that needs standardization to support new applications like model-based simulations and autonomous ships.
“Standards are a key factor in removing barriers and enabling the growth of digital applications in the maritime industry and we hope this study will inspire others to invest in the development and adoption of standardization”, says Pierre Sames, and “we will continue developing them.”
The full report can be downloaded here.
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Source: DNV GL
