Page 13: of Marine News Magazine (September 2022)

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Robert Allan Ltd.

DLBA Naval Architects

NETSCo

Mike Fitzpatrick, president, Jeff Bowles, director, DLBA Rich Mueller, president and

Robert Allan Ltd. Naval Architects CEO, NETSCo whether that’s economic studies that look at, “Hey, should of the early adopters of computer aided design (CAD) and

I go slower? What are some of the things that I should be began exploring laser scanning technology as soon as it ap- doing in order to reduce my carbon footprint?” Those take peared. We are currently working with virtual reality (VR) engineering support, and most shipowners—not all, but tools and software to support design efforts. We are look- most—over the years have shed their in-house engineer- ing forward to augmented reality and how that might help ing departments. They’re more focused on operations and construction, training and maintenance activities. There don’t have a lot of engineering support; many ship owners are many potential uses for the technology, and we are col- just don’t have the bandwidth, so they rely on outside ? rms laborating with industry to ? nd the right applications. like ours to help them. Regarding decarbonization, we have established a new

Digitalization is a little different animal because those of? ce in Houston to focus on the oil and gas market, but are tools that we need to use in order to help us become more importantly to lead our entry into the Blue Economy more ef? cient, or to help us put ourselves in a position market with projects associated with alternate sources of where we have the tools and the software that we need to energy production. These could include wind energy, wave do the modeling and to be able to show the owner what he energy, hydrogen production, fuel cell integration, etc.

needs to see in order for them to make the decision on cap- ital expenditures. For us, it means ? nding different ways to

Are you seeing growing interest in vessel elec- do business. It isn’t just guys sitting at drawing boards with tri? cation and alternative fuels, and where is

T-squares and slide rules like in the really old days. It’s not most attention being directed? How do you see even just doing drafting work because digitalization im- the evolution of power/propulsion solutions in plies that we’re building manipulable, 3D models of their the marine business?

vessels that they can use to perhaps optimize loading or RM: Yes, we are seeing a de? nite increase in interest in al- optimize speed power curves or any of the things that will ternative fuels. But as you might suspect, at least in our help them to operate more ef? ciently. business, it’s in a certain segments of the market. Shipown-

JB: We are interested in these trends and are on the lead- ers that are making long transatlantic, transpaci? c voyages ing edge of their implementation. Gibbs & Cox was one are not as interested, or at least that’s been our experience so www.marinelink.com MN 13|