Maritime 4.0: Practices, challenges and opportunities
Blog of the week by Kaiko Systems
With real-time data transmission becoming possible, Industry 4.0 can now bring advances in data management, device communication, and digitalization for smart manufacturing.
As an essential part of the global supply chain, Maritime 4.0 drives the development of a smart and digitally-enabled maritime Industry.
What is Maritime 4.0?
Maritime 4.0 is the convergence of Industry 4.0 and the maritime industry. The purpose of Maritime 4.0 includes but is not limited to improving the lifecycle of vessels, facilitating the delivery of greater performance, lowering ownership cost and increasing safety and reliability.
There are various definitions of Maritime 4.0. Here are some of the most common characteristics suggested by industry practitioners and academics:
- Data: Automated integration of data into decision making
- Connected: Implementation of connected technologies for design, production, and operation
- Sustainable: Decreased shipping environmental impact related to production, operation and disposal
- Operation: Affordable and sustainable operation
- Safety: Reduction of risk, increasing safety and security
The Roadmap of Maritime 4.0
The Industry 4.0 Maturity Index contains four levels of maturity: Transparency → Visibility → Predictability → Adaptability
It is important to note that in this framework, every stage builds on the solid foundation established in the previous stage, and all four stages should be followed in sequence for maximum benefits.
To keep up with the four phases of Industry 4.0, there are some immediate issues the maritime industry needs to address: Visibility of historical and real-time information, standardization in the data specification and format. Hence, there are two phases the maritime industry needs to tackle to have smart capabilities:
- Phase 1: Gain quick wins by data standardization, visualization, and streamlining processes
- Phase 2: Achieve smart capabilities by leveraging a single source of truth
Challenges and Opportunities of Maritime 4.0
According to research done by Thetius and Inmarsat Maritime, Covid-19 has accelerated digital transformation by 3 years, and the global maritime digital products and services market will grow to $159 bn this year. This also leads to an increase of 85% deal flow of investments in digital technologies in 2021. Here are some challenges and opportunities on the road to Maritime 4.0:
Conclusion
The vision of Maritime 4.0 is to have increased automation, predictive maintenance, self-optimizable process, and, above all, a new level of efficiency.
Covid has been driving the maritime industry to adopt digital transformation at a faster rate, and this trend is irreversible. Data standardization will be a key point that all aspects of maritime need to address in order to realize the vision of Maritime 4.0
MARPRO’s blog of the week is by Fabian Fussek, co-founder & CEO at Kaiko Systems.
About Kaiko Systems:
Kaiko Systems turns maritime operations into verified and standardized data to bring safety, efficiency, and quality improvements to the oceans.
Follow them on Linkedin to stay up to date on best practices in maritime operations! Or, explore the product here: https://www.kaikosystems.com/demo
