One of Norway’s most tech savvy owners, Torvald Klaveness, has released details of how it has concluded a class-approved ship survey with the surveyor sitting some 5,000 km away from the vessel.
Klaveness Ship Management (KSM) set out to explore the road towards condition based maintenance back in April 2017 with a working theory that shipowners could save substantial amounts by addressing maintenance tasks on vessels when needed instead of makers’ recommendation, which normally is maintenance at a set number of hours.
In order to achieve class notation for condition monitoring, it is a requirement to have MPMS notation in place. For KSM, this meant that some vessels would have to undergo an initial MPMS survey.
KSM completed the first ever approved remote initial MPMS survey on the caustic bulk vessel Ballard in June this year. The survey preparation and execution was done in close collaboration with class society DNV GL. The traditional engine room inspection was replaced with a video recorded by the use of a GoPro camera, which was shared with the surveyor in advance of the survey.
The survey was conducted with the surveyor located in Oslo, sharing screen and communicating with a chief engineer onboard the vessel during a port call in Bahrain. The chief engineer presented the PMS and the onboard maintenance routines, and answered all questions to the satisfaction of the surveyor.
“Remote surveys can reduce cost for the shipowner by eliminating travel expenses for surveyors, but most importantly it can enable parts of, or entire, surveys to be completed while the vessel is at sea. This can ultimately reduce workload and fatigue for the crew, allowing them to focus more of their attention on safe cargo- and port operations,” Torvald Klaveness maintained in a release.
Going forward Klaveness said it will, together with DNV GL, investigate further survey elements that can be carried out remotely.
