In a local weather of accelerating complexity, with new laws, environmental considerations and industrial issues, how can homeowners and operators management their fleets, and futures, from dry land? NAVTOR’s Tor Håkon Svanes believes the reply lies in innovation and integration – creating options that evolve in keeping with the wants of a dynamic international business.
“There are smarter ways to do things.”
Tor Håkon Svanes, the NavFleet Product Manager at NAVTOR, is referring to a latest chat with a brand new buyer.
The unnamed fleet supervisor, who admitted to being considerably careworn, was lamenting in regards to the problem of gathering emissions knowledge from numerous vessels, and reporting platforms, and making an attempt to streamline, organise and analyse it in a method that made sense in relation to CII compliance.
“He’d been juggling various spreadsheets and documents, looking at historical data in one place and estimates in another, and was, to be frank, using some colourful language about regulatory developments,” Svanes smiles, including:
“I got the feeling it wasn’t the favourite part of his job.”
Big image advantages
The identical can’t be stated in regards to the NAVTOR man.
The problem of simplifying complexity, of piecing collectively the business’s puzzle to ship one sensible delivery massive image, seems to be what will get him off the bed within the morning.
“The difficulty, and motivation, lies in making this easy for everyone else,” he says.
“But with the right competency, resources and approach, digital solutions can be created to do the hard work for you. That leaves onshore teams free to do their main tasks – running safe, efficient and profitable shipping companies.”
The energy of 1
Svanes and his staff have developed, and are regularly creating, one such answer. NavFleet, initially launched in 2017, is billed as a “complete ship operations platform”. It works by integrating a number of streams of knowledge – from vessels, shore-based amenities, and business-critical sources – right into a single answer, empowering administration groups to watch, refine and enhance ship- and fleet-wide efficiency.
It not solely offers situational consciousness and management, unlocking smarter determination making, but additionally automates and simplifies duties – seamlessly gathering knowledge throughout NAVTOR’s joined-up digital ecosystem.
“It sounds complex, but the benefits are easy to understand,” Svanes states, “and that’s particularly true when it comes to compliance.”
The newest NavFleet updates present a robust demonstration of simply this level.
Staying one step forward
Released in November final yr, NavFleet 1.8 launched a complicated Emissions Simulator to assist clients navigate CII. This attracts on knowledge starting from vessel midday studies to e-Navigation and efficiency knowledge – all of which is computer- and human-validated – to gauge vessel and fleet historic emissions and mannequin them for future predictions. Parameters could be simply modified, and vessels in contrast, to present in-depth insights into how belongings will carry out and what CII rankings they’ll count on. All with out the necessity to juggle an ocean of various paperwork and repair suppliers.
The just-released NavFleet 1.9 provides to this with a spread of updates, together with an EU ETS dashboard, assertion and voyage estimator tailor-made to deal with this yr’s new regulatory actuality. This creates estimates of allowances, EUA statements and the mandatory studies instantly – empowering each compliance and the power to transparently share each knowledge and prices with charterers and freight homeowners.
With what looks like a continuing circulate of latest laws, such digital skills are, Svanes opines, now not a “nice to have” however a “must have”.
Inevitable evolution
“There’s a lot of excellent ship- and fleet managers out there, many of whom are very adept at using Excel sheets, various reports and a range of methods to work through required tasks,” he says.
“So, you could argue you don’t need this kind of integrated solution yet… perhaps for the next month, six months, or year. But it’s a fact of the matter that sooner or later you will. Complexity is increasing, regulatory and market demands are accelerating, and without the right digital tools it’ll be impossible to keep up.”
And certainly, as Svanes factors out, why even strive?
“The feedback we receive from the market is that customers want more innovation, automation and integration,” he says. “They want efficiency over inefficiency. They want less platforms, but more functionality from the solutions they do choose.
“At the end of the day that’s what we’re working towards with NavFleet – a fully integrated shoreside platform that management teams, and other stakeholders, rely on as their one-stop-shop.”
Moving targets
Svanes is trustworthy sufficient to confess that “we’re not there yet”, noting that NavFleet should regularly evolve in keeping with each business calls for and buyer wants. As such, he reveals, 2024 will probably be “a busy year” for the staff.
January’s 1.9 replace additionally noticed the introduction of on-line ENCs for shore-based groups, whereas a brand new earthquake and tsunami warning is on the cusp of being built-in now (“an important feature for our Japanese customers in particular”). The subsequent main launch in Spring will add a spread of notifications to enhance monitoring and situational consciousness, along with additional enhancements on the Emission & CII Module.
Digital logbook integration ought to comply with later within the yr, whereas a late summer season replace will add a service serving to customers perceive and plan for the FuelEU Maritime regulation, coming into drive in January 2025.
“This is a further requirement targeting GHG emission intensity for ships trading in the EU, with added shore power requirements for container and passenger vessels,” he notes. “We’re refining the NavFleet module now to give our customers the ability to stay ahead of the regulatory game here, paving a way for simplified compliance as and when its needed.
“We partner with the industry to deliver what our global customers want, sometimes before they even know they want it!” Svanes provides with a smile. “That in-depth understanding gives NAVTOR a real advantage.”
And it’s not the one factor.
Voyaging to tomorrow
Although Svanes himself is a little bit too humble to confess it, NAVTOR is now able of clear international management inside its specialist maritime know-how area of interest.
