Shipping company Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL), class society ClassNK and maritime software, services and data analysis provider NAPA have jointly developed a navigational risk monitoring system.
The system built on the partners’ combined expertise in the fields of ship operations, safe routing, and risk analysis was adopted in MOL’s fleet of over 700 ships following the joint development and testing.
The solution aims to increase safety across the fleet by predicting the risk of grounding in advance and alerting the shoreside teams, giving them greater situational awareness of navigation risks, the partners explained.
Based on NAPA’s cloud-based monitoring platform, NAPA Fleet Intelligence , which does not require any onboard hardware installation or crew input, the solution combines several data sources such as position data, ship data, sea depth, and navigational charts, with NAPA’s data on typical operational patterns, to provide users with a robust, reliable, easy-to-use fleet-wide platform to reduce mainly grounding risk.
As described, the system also incorporates carefully calculated alerts and notifications to shore-based safety operations teams whenever the increased navigational risk is detected, in turn, enhancing the ability to avoid and mitigate incidents.
Commenting on the solution, Pekka Pakkanen , EVP Shipping Solutions at NAPA, said: “The deployment of the solution to a global fleet of over 700 vessels truly shows how far cloud-based solutions have come in recent years. It also shows the benefit they can bring to solving critical operational issues, with the ability to roll out throughout a large fleet without any additional hardware installation”.
Toshiro Arima , corporate officer and general manager of Digital Transformation Centre at ClassNK, added: “We are very pleased to be part of the project and contribute to the technology that will lead to robust and sustainable seaborne trade. This is a perfect example of a collaborative approach, and ClassNK will continue working with the frontrunners of the industry to solve shipping’s various challenges”.
“We believe that the sure management of navigational risks is the absolute necessity for maritime industries, and this system does that, both analyzing grounding risks and alerting on it. We believe that it will help to prevent accidental grounding during ocean voyages”, said Satoshi Fujii, general manager of Smart Shipping Division at MOL.
Meanwhile, the Japanese company is working together with its compatriot maritime technology company JRCS to jointly research the use of AI-based object recognition technology to support watchkeeping aboard vessels.
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