A year has gone by…
…since I started MaritimeInsight and March again finds me in Stamford once again, where the Connecticut Maritime Association moves and shakes for the next three days.
Over the last year I’ve tried to unpick the main issues impacting communications and technology. I probably haven’t always got it right but my guiding principle was to provide a forum for neutral debate on where the sector is going and how that fits with the wider industry.
That commitment remains because the 12 months have shown that left to the marketing men, there is as much spin and smoke around as there is clear guiding information. And because the next couple of years will likely define who survives and who falls by the wayside.
As I have noted it in recent posts, communications is a market in the midst of an upheaval and one for which the future will look somewhat like the past but there will be fundamental changes too. The next challenge is probably less about selecting systems and more about empowering and enabling crew to ensure that the users can extract real value from them.
One need only look at the latest DigitalShip to see that VSAT has gone from a nice to have to a must-have for owners of high quality tonnage. The emergence of the HTS era will see that trend strengthen but there are big questions to be asked and answered.
Will Inmarsat continue to gain enough traction on XpressLink to cement the take up of GlobalXpress? Will Intelsat get its IPO away and EPIC in service? and will Iridium NEXT get off the ground? Will Globalstar’s second-generation play come good? I recently authored an article for Via Satellite on the step change in satellite comms and I couldn’t get O3B to tell me anything so I guess they are busy.
How far will Ku-band VSAT be able to keep up the pressure on all these? And what happens to L-band spectrum as owners begin to move away from their comfort zone?
As Maersk Maritime Technology’s Bo Cerup Simonsen put it at last week’s GreenShip Technology conference, the biggest challenge is not technology, or financing or sustainability, it is ‘survivability’ and whether shipping companies and their suppliers have the financial stability to last the course.
Maersk of course is the industry’s bellwether, a company which defines engagement with the core shipping issues, principally the need to get a handle on big data and in the process improve operational efficiency.
The Maersk fleet of 870 large containerships ships is already reporting into a single database, with data flowing almost continuously on an automated basis, helping the company develop performance benchmarks on people and ships alike.
That means that big blue can sharpen its competitive edge, assessing the impact of fuel saving technologies and comparing vessel performance, dropping poorly performing chartered tonnage and bringing in younger ships as necessary. Crew are incentivised to improve performance within safe working limits.
“It’s a case of deciding if you are going to do the minimum or the best, to work beyond what is regulated and maintain your vision,” Simonsen said. “The key aspect for us is to make sure that the data and software burden are not placed on the crew. We monitor and measure then discuss with the crew what the implications are.”
Properly resourcing crew training was fundamental to this – there was no point in investing in technology without helping crew get the most out of it. So once again we are back to the humanware. Software, technology, systems, these are just means to an end. The real challenge is to educate and change mindsets.