Warwick Norman sits, sipping coffee in the early morning sunshine beside the pool at the Astir Palace, the hotel that tends to act as the party fulcrum for Posidonia. For Norman, the ceo of ship vetting platform RightShip, he’s nearing the end of three-week world tour to highlight new developments at the Melbourne-based firm, a whirlwind that has started and finished in Athens.
RightShip Qi is a new product that will launch in Q3 after three years of development. It brings predictive analytics to ship vetting, Norman explains.
Pronounced ‘key’ – and an acronym for Quality Index – RightShip Qi is all about improving maritime safety and efficiency.
Building on the incumbent SVISTM platform, RightShip Qi harnesses big data, predictive analytics and real-time risk assessments to better target substandard maritime performance. Vast quantities of ever-changing data are analysed by sophisticated algorithms to spot patterns and draw conclusions from data sets too large, diverse and dynamic for analysis with previous technology.
RightShip Qi has the ability, the company claims, to instantaneously analyse, compare and integrate data such as port state control inspections, casualty history, satellite data and terminal feedback to identify anomalies and trends.
Other new features rolled out recently include barges and OSVs now going into the RightShip database.
Having spoken with owners around the world for the past few weeks, Norman admits: “Customers are worried about the potential length of the downturn and the effect on safety.”
Vetting volumes, however, remain high, he stresses. With that he has to go and prepare to head home.
