Page 69: of Marine News Magazine (November 2016)

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VESSEL DESIGN

As fascinating and useful as the concept may be, there are still clients who are worried that ‘big brother’ is watching and ready to void an equip- ment warranty. The ? rst step is to de? ne from the outset what data is going to be accessed and why it is going to be used. McFadyen says the key is to approach this in a collabora- tive way with the customer and work with them around solutions that are tailor-made for what they’re inter- ested in doing. In return, he says, an appropriate level of trust is achieved. “Through the delivery of the reports and the advice and the result in cost savings, we’ve built up that trust that allows them to expand from a pilot scenario to more of a ? eet agreement.”

S W ?O HAT

In a world where big data means many things to different stakehold- ers, Rolls-Royce wants the data that is mined to be packaged and then delivered to the client in a meaning- ful and useful format. After all, some- one sitting in a room with a bank of video monitors and computers can be bombarded with 100,000 bits of information every minute. It can be overwhelming. In the port security world, they call it the ‘so what [?]’ fac- tor. “Early in the days of equipment health management and monitoring around engines, the data input over- whelmed both the transmission capa- bility and the analysis capability. So we’ve worked to develop algorithms that sort through the data on board, and then deliver only the key things to transmit,” explains McFadyen, continuing, “That allows us to be able to comprehend them in real time and to pass along the advice in a way that is actionable for the customer.

All that data is still collected and is available to go back in after the fact to look for things that can be improved, www.marinelink.com MN 69

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