Page 44: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (August 2014)

44 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News ? AUGUST 2014 sending, lodging and brieÞ ng a Þ eld ser- vice engineer. In addition, Van Leeuwen stresses, when direct intervention is re-quired by service engineers: ?GTAC will inform the Service Coordination Center with all essential background informa-tion and full diagnostics for the attend-ing Field Engineer. The ?First Time Fix? percentage of Þ eld service will increase, reducing repair time.?Remote monitoring is therefore a criti-cal component that supports the optimiza-tion of ship efÞ ciency because it enables expert advice to be given to shipboard engineers immediately on how to adjust operating processes to get the most out of working equipment, said Berends.In fact, he describes fast-rising expecta-tions from customers for remote monitor- ing, its predictive capability and its abil-ity to identify root causes in fault-Þ nding, while continuing to stress that the ability of Imtech Marine?s GTACs to respond quickly to incoming calls for assistance remains critical.?At one level, our most pressing calls will come from customers with a problem that needs to be dealt with immediately. However, owners are increasingly seek- ing preventive capability, with equipment and systems monitoring backed by ex-pert advice to optimize asset utilization,? Berends said. He describes a common scenario, where a ship?s master might be tempted to reset some or all systems when suspecting impending satellite con-nectivity outage, when the right course of action is to identify the source of the signal compromising connectivity and isolating the issue.?Sometimes it is a case of helping the master with the problem he has by iden-tifying that it is not the problem he thinks he has,? he said. ?By monitoring equip-ment remotely, we can establish that the basic problem is a signal feeding into the network, not the network itself, and thus avoid time-consuming reconÞ guring.?At a system-speciÞ c level, a problem caused by GPS may present itself to the user as a perceived radar problem, for ex-ample, but remote monitoring can iden-tify the root cause and offer alerts on a proactive basis.Keeping close oversight of shipboard equipment temperatures is also essential, Berends said. ?If shipboard equipment is left to operate at too high a temperature, the Þ rst warning can be when it burns out.? Imtech monitoring provides the ba-sis for recommendations on preventive action.?Increasingly, we are also working in close collaboration with engineers on-board ship to enhance their own working REPAIR & MAINTENANCE Imtech Marine is relaunching Radio Holland as the brand to iden-tify its entire navigation and communica- tions service portfolio, including remote monitoring.Nico van Leeuwen, Imtech Marine Director Global Service Sales Below: Main mast from helideck of Oleg Strashnov. Inset: Fiber optic patch panel for ship-wide network distribution onboard Oleg Strashnov. MR #8 (42-49).indd 44MR #8 (42-49).indd 448/4/2014 12:16:31 PM8/4/2014 12:16:31 PM