Shipping is regularly lambasted for its lack of innovative spirit. As regular writers of annual tech previews – see last year’s version here – the disparity between stated ambition and actual developments can be enormous.
Splash columnist Kris Kosmala argues that maritime is full of technology improvements of which a few could be called innovations, but he says he would be hard pressed to name a true breakthrough in 2022.
Can 2023 and the entry into force of the International Maritime Organization’s Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) and the Energy Efficiency Existing Ship Index (EEXI ) bring a stunning change?
Voyage optimisation solutions came with “big promises” but have thus far proved less than Earth shattering, Kosmala reckons.
Kent Lee, CEO of navigation specialist Voyager Worldwide, agrees with Kosmala, admitting there is a “long way to go” until voyages can be truly optimised.
“As we now know,” Kosmala says, “behind every marketing pitch of an artificial intelligence (AI) meteorologist the startups also employed solid human expertise.”
Likewise, there’s been plenty of action in the vessel performance optimisation space over the past 12 months, but, Kosmala argues shipping’s inherent unwillingness to share data has stymied progress.
We have an industry largely full of small technology companies and startups
“Part of the problem with maritime technology breakthroughs is also the fact that many startups are too small,” Kosmala says. “They either lack their own scale to research and build solutions or lack the scale of their client base. The obvious answer is for the startups to merge to achieve that scale.”
Frank Coles, a Florida-based shipping consultant, and former head of brands such as Wallem and Inmarsat Maritime, warns readers there is unlikely to be any great breakthrough in 2023 from a technology point of view.
“We have an industry largely full of small technology companies and startups,” Coles says, echoing Kosmala’s comments. “Like the sectors of the industry it creates a fragmented approach to the solutions required in the industry.”
Regulatory hurdles
Many polled for Splash’s tech survey cite the likely disappointments emanating from the regulatory field this year.
“At the end of 2022 we have already seen quite strong pushback from major industry players when it comes to the efficiency of the International Maritime Organization’s new CII. It is quite apparent that this is a regulation which has probably been put together with the best of intentions but has failed to hit the mark on the overall objective,” says Carl Schou, president of Wilhelmsen Ship Management, joining a growing chorus of CII critics.
“The CII scheme has flaws, and technology investments that are made simply to reach the minimum regulatory requirements will disappoint both the industry and our environment,” argues Michael O’Brien, vice president at StormGeo, a Norwegian weather forecaster.
CII might seem to be a good approach to reducing the shipping industry’s emission of global warming gases, but as Thomas Pitschel, a project manager at KBB Turbochargers points out, the truth lies in between, as long as the production of alternative fuels is not carbon neutral or green, the effect of greenhouse gas reduction is limited.
“The biggest disappointments this year will be lack of common government incentives and policies to drive new clean fuel supplies and so assist owners to invest confidently in new tonnage with common clean fuel propulsion technology,” says Andrew Airey, managing director of Bangkok-based ship manager Highland Maritime.
Jussi Puranen, head of product line at Yaskawa Environmental Energy / The Switch, a Finnish green tech firm, says shipping still has too many future fuel options to choose from, making it impossible for proper global infrastructure development to get underway this year. Furthermore, like others polled, he says implementing new rules and regulations will take time, slowing down investments that would help the industry’s green transition.
The fact that there still are misaligned emissions reduction ambitions and measures across IMO, and locally by the European Union, is causing the focus to be on discussing decarbonisation targets instead of focusing on solving the issues, notes Esa Henttinen, executive vice president at NAPA Safety Solutions.
“This might not be a tech disappointment per se – but it sets the context in which tech develops,” he says.
Alf Kåre Ådnanes, a regional manager at ABB Marine & Ports, admits his frustration at the likely lack of speed and delayed deployment of fuel cell technology and hydrogen as a marine fuel.
The frustration for many surveyed is the failure to harness existing technology to get the industry to its green goals.
“The biggest tech disappointment for 2023 lies with the recognition, or lack thereof, that what the industry needs to reach sustainability goals within the maritime sector, is largely under our noses, and greatly underutilised,” says Paul Sells, president and CEO of software firm ABS Wavesight.
Out on a limb
With more and more column inches spent writing about the advent of autonomous shipping, Splash readers have been told not to hold their breath waiting for any big breakthroughs this year.
“While there has been a lot of interest in developing autonomous ships that can operate without a human crew, it is unlikely that such vessels will see more progress in 2023, as the focus shifts to be on remote sensors and system integrations,” predicts Mike Coomber, executive chairman at Rivertrace, a British bilge monitoring firm.
Similarly, Grant Ingram, CEO EMEA at Innovez One, a port management information system, tells Splash: “We will also see a lot of systems claiming to offer AI and machine learning, without actually deploying the technology.”
Disintegrated
In yesterday’s Splash maritime tech breakthroughs report many respondents argued that shipping – and the systems the industry uses – will become far more integrated this year. Not everyone is convinced it will happen so quickly, however, the required change in mindset being a very big ask.
“The integrated as a part of the global responsibility chains takes investments and willingness to collaborate within the industry. The industry is cost savings driven by nature – I am afraid that takes time to change,” says Morten Lind-Olsen, who heads up Norwegian software firm Dualog.
“We hear a lot about the need for collaboration but the truth is that without the right model and partnerships, the kind of technology innovation we need will struggle to gain a foothold,” says James Collett, managing director at navigation specialist Sperry Marine.
Data disparity
Additional failures will come this year where shipowners or technology providers attempt to roll out digital solutions that lack high quality data, proper data management standards or a clear understanding of the problem that they are attempting to solve, warns Osher Perry, CEO and co-founder of artificial intelligence company ShipIn Systems.
Data availability and data quality will prove to be sizeable stumbling blocks for shipping this year, according to Søren Meyer, the CEO of ZeroNorth, a well known optimisation brand.
“As the use of technology platforms increases, the new level of transparency will reveal the lack of standardised, quality data that each organisation and our industry currently holds,” Meyer says.“Disappointment will emerge as the industry comes to see that it doesn’t have the right data it needs for different use cases, but also that the data that it does have has room for improvement in quantity and quality. Owners and operators will see that they are missing the key information they need to report on emissions, or that they are not getting enough of the right data to fully optimise their vessels.”
Likewise, in the whole data debate sensor data utilisation may very well become a major maritime breakthrough in 2023, but it may also turn out to be a disappointment unless the data is properly utilised, warns StormGeo’s O’Brien.
“Data acquisition for the sake of harnessing data is pointless,” he says. “The role of sensors must be clearly aligned with the ability to make use of and act on the data they generate. This means leveraging data not only for predictive but also prescriptive purposes.”
The paper trail
Emma Mark, chief operating officer at CargoMate, a digital tool for crews, suggests the biggest disappointment the industry faces in 2023 is the continued reluctance to give up paper and transition fully to digital.
“The shipping industry is awash with fully compliant digital products that can reduce human error and minimise administrative duties of the already overstretched crew and yet there is still a reticence to embrace these solutions,” she says. “For all of the high-level talk of smart ports and autonomous vessels by academics and conglomerates alike, the reality onboard is still very much manual processes and paper-based products.”
Comms crisis
Finally, Splash returns to one of the big potential breakthroughs envisaged in yesterday’s instalment of our tech 2023 special – the much heralded rise of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite communications such as Elon Musk’s Starlink, something that if successful could fundamentally shift the ability to exchange data with the vessels, remotely access, control, update and maintain software.
“2023 may be the year where a taste of the potential may result in frustration, disappointment and increasing impatience,” warns Daniel Ng, who heads up CyberOwl, a cyber security company.
Crew and shore teams are likely to embrace this improved connectivity and bandwidth, quickly forgetting how to operate under more restricted connectivity, he predicts. Shipping companies and their equipment suppliers will attempt to connect more onboard systems. The crew will get increasingly used to relying heavily on the internet to complete tasks and operate their lives at sea, Ng forecasts.
“This raises the likelihood of misconfigurations, insecure connections and exploitation of vulnerabilities of onboard systems. Given this, we expect cyber incidents to increase significantly during 2023,” Ng says, concluding Splash’s series of 2023 forecasts.
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There is a real need to define what innovation actually means and implies. Novelty is not innovation.
Innovation implies more effective activities that can demonstrate and deliver real quantifiable returns and benefits to users. This could mean using existing assets more productively or the adoption of new methods, systems and technologies.
There seems to be a fog of war around this subject. Some clarity would be useful.
Your opening sentence is key. Splash 24/7 published two articles, one on what were the breakthroughs in 2022 and this one on the disappointments. My comment on the first one was that the technology companies are trying to be the visionaries, but the maritime industry needs to own the vision and clear the fog. Could the visionaries name the 5 things they would consider breakthroughs and then let the innovators have a run at those? There is scarce public record of such opinions, but they are probably expressed in direct meetings between the buyers and the vendors and they don’t spill into the public domain leaving any technology vendors free to claim that their “stuff” represents breakthrough (because their investors wouldn’t care to fund companies focused on incremental improvements)