FLEET OPTIMIZATIONOptimize Performance viaData AnalyticsEarly adopters use performance monitoring and condition-based maintenance tools to cut costs, head off breakdowns, ? nd ef? ciencies and ensure compliance.By Patricia Keefehe only thing harder than ? nding a needle in a hay- dashboards. ESRG’s OstiaEdge monitoring suite supports us-stack, is ? nding the sharpest points in a haystack ers on ship and on shore, across multiple platforms and server full of needles, which is essentially the situation to- options. The company also provides custom application and day on most vessels. Awash with hundreds or thou- consulting services.Tsands of data sensors and data points, it’s the rare ship master The second problem lies in convincing a conservative indus-or management team that can be certain they are culling the try, one often described as being in the Stone Age technologi-right information needed to cut costs and increase ef? ciencies cally, to leap forward more fully into the digital age and invest to the extent possible in order to stretch razor thin operating in the tools needed to sift through all that data. “Shipping is budgets and goose tight pro? t margins. an old industry that has been around for thousands of years, Whether they know it or not, this is exactly the position with shipping companies that have been around for hundreds that shipping companies ? nd themselves in these days. All of years. It’s sometimes slow to jump on the next big thing. those sensors on all those systems – collecting and recording The marine industry in general has been burned by technol-hundreds or thousands of data points a second, per day, each ogy, hence they are very cautious. The required mindset to be month – are building ever bigger digital piles, ? lling virtual able to leverage the cloud is more forward looking than that bottomless cargo holds with shiny points of data. It’s just of the average ship owner or operator,” says Rob Bradenham, sitting there, an untapped resource going to waste instead of ESRG’s General Manager. informing strategic business decisions and heading off expen- sive repairs and ? nes. Current Maritime Market for Data AnalyticsThe problem isn’t collecting the data; it’s not even understand- The market of ships well suited for remote monitoring or ing what to do with it. It’s twofold, really. First, is just ? guring using the cloud to analyze data is about 30,000 out of 100,000 out how to assess and analyze what you’ve got in order to pull out commercial class vessels globally. Bradenham expects to see and focus on the salient bits that will enable ship company man- the market double, if not triple, in the next 15 years or so, not-agement and vessel masters to meet objectives – be it better fuel ing that the vast majority of new builds are prime candidates. ef? ciency, lower fuel costs, longer equipment life cycles, lower The standard for new vessels is such that they have good sen-maintenance and replacement costs or better environmental com- soring on board, good automation and control systems and pliance – by making the right decisions in a timely manner. good communications structures. That’s where ESRG Technology Group LLC of Virginia In terms of dollar value, Bradenham said that if those 30,000 Beach, VA, comes in. Founded by former U.S. Navy engi- vessels were to adopt data analytics and remote monitoring, neers, it provides cloud-based, remote condition monitoring it would create a $20 billion value in terms of reductions in and data analytics to enable clients to address environmen- fuel consumption, downtime, maintenance expenses and en-tal, fuel, energy and maintenance issues at both the vessel and vironmental ? nes for those customers. He thinks that number ? eet level, while also providing ship managers with “action- could go to $50 billion by 2030. In terms of ESRG’s potential able” information by automatically analyzing a broad swath market - it is approximately $1B today, although the adoption of data using a variety of reporting and comparison tools and rate is extremely low, “de? nitely less than 1%.”50 Maritime Professional 1Q 2014| | MP Q1 2014 50-63.indd 50 MP Q1 2014 50-63.indd 50 2/26/2014 1:33:33 PM2/26/2014 1:33:33 PM