According to a Riviera Maritime Media report, Schulte Group deputy chief operating officer Helge Bartels spoke at Riviera Maritime Media’s Optimised Ship Forum in Hamburg on 1 October on how the company collects data from its vessels and manages and leverages it to enhance performance.
Increased Environmental & Regulatory Pressures
Mr Bartels said he expects environmental pressures and regulation to increase, with emissions reduction a key driver. By collecting data and having knowledge of how to utilise it effectively, owners and operators can avoid unpleasant surprises.
About Schulte Group’s Digitalisation Efforts
The Schulte Group is split between a shipowning group – that either owns or co-owns more than 90 vessels including container ships, tankers, gas carriers, bulkers, and offshore support vessels – and a maritime services arm that includes ship management. marine software development, newbuilding supervision, commercial management, vessel inspection, hospitality and port agency, Mr Bartels explained.
The group’s digitalisation journey began nearly a decade ago, and now covers almost all areas of a vessel’s operations, including technical, organisational and commercial areas, said Mr Bartels. Data plays an essential role in how the company drives its operations, with technologies such as telemetry systems improving vessel performance. The company has adopted automation in areas such as daily reporting, maintenance, monitoring, operational alerts and diagnostic systems.
Fleet Performance Activity
This technology is enabled by the company’s Athens-based Fleet Performance Centre, which is tasked with spearheading Bernhard Schulte Ship Management (BSM)’s operational efficiency and reliability through data-driven tools and process automation.
Mr Bartels explained to the audience in Hamburg how the Fleet Performance Centre uses data from vessels to optimise performance through analysis, benchmarking and actionable insights. KPIs are used to provide analytics via dashboards that visualise performance, provide traffic-light style overviews and issue alerts to operators. Areas covered by these KPIs include main and auxiliary engine performance, hull and propeller condition, passage execution and trim optimisation.
How engines are assessed?
Main engine performance is assessed based on criteria including fuel consumption, turbocharger efficiency, cylinder output balancing, and lube oil consumption, among others. Hull and propeller performance is tracked while assessing the impact of marine growth on coatings and analysing speed loss and other factors.
Continuous monitoring can be provided for individual vessels, which are benchmarked against sisters, peers and the wider fleet.
Maritime Digital Solutions App
Schulte Group fully owns MariApps, a marine digital solutions provider with products that enable owners and operators to make use of data including smartPAL, a web-based cloud-supporting marine enterprise resource planning tool, and LiveFleet, an application that allows shipowners to track vessels in real time and provides information such as speed, performance, and fuel optimisation.
Defining KPIs
Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement also offers telemetry projects in combination with an analytics platform and consolidated reporting for clients, including the ability for customers to define their own KPIs.
“We are not just talking about our own fleet, we are also talking about 400 vessels managed for others – we have to match their demands as well,” said Mr Bartels, adding that the Fleet Performance Centre translates into positive results for the company’s supervision and monitoring services.
“This allows us to be quite confident, and this is one of the core strategic basics that Bernhard Schulte follows.”
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Source: Riviera Maritime Media
