Internet of Things, Machine learning and training leading to operational efficiency
Spliethoff D-Type with her digital twin
Operational efficiency is extremely important when operating a sustainable fleet. The Spliethoff Group has therefore invested heavily in new technologies and in training its crews and staff in the office, to ensure that they have the right knowledge and tools to come to the best decisions.
Over the last five years, the Spliethoff Group has been developing its own bespoke Performance Monitoring system, using the Internet of Things technology and improved connectivity on board of our vessels. The system enables us to collect high frequency and highly accurate operational sensor data from our fleet. Fuel consumption, main engine power, position and speed, are just a few examples of data that are automatically collected with our in-house designed data logger. The operational data is enriched with other data sources such as weather, to give a complete picture of the fleet’s performance. The analysis of the data gives us valuable insight to enable us to further optimise the operational efficiency of the fleet. We also visualise these insights in dashboards and tools for the operators ashore and the crew. This enables them to follow the performance of our fleet in real time and to optimise voyage planning by the power usage, speed optimisation and just in time arrivals.
Additionally, these dashboards and tools vastly improve communication about efficiency between the ship and shore staff. The situational awareness is raised and the knowledge is shared. This communication is vital for fleet performance optimisation, while leaving the decision-making in the right hands and supported by the right knowledge and data. To improve upon the knowledge of our people, we have also been organising many training sessions over the years about efficiency and weather routing. These training courses are held during officers’ meetings, which are organised multiple times a year. During these meetings knowledge is exchanged, information about our performance is discussed and advice about how to operate our fleet in a sustainable manner is spread throughout the team.
In the last few years, we have also developed Digital Twins of our vessels by using the collected data and machine learning. These digital twins give input to simulation and benchmarking tools to further assess our vessels’ performances. Overall, the Spliethoff Group Performance Monitoring system has realised considerable fuel savings and reduced our CO2 emissions by more than 43,000 metric tonnes over the years.