Page 38: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (February 2017)

oices the internet of things

The EAGLE has Landed

It may come as some surprise, but EAGLE BULK SHIPPING is a progressive leader in the use of big data to monitor and manage its ? eet. Jonathan Dowsett, Senior Fleet Performance Manager, explains in a recent interview with Maritime Reporter TV.

BY GREG TRAUTHWEIN

Image: Eric Haun Maritime Reporter TV

For our readers not familiar, who is Eagle Bulk consumption, you immediately have actionable infor- embrace this new technology and this new approach

Shipping? mation and can start to dig into the underlying data to which suggests that perhaps you shouldn’t simply determine where the difference stems from.” conduct your operations as you always have: the data

Eagle Bulk Shipping Inc. is a US based owner and op- shows you should do this, or a model shows that you erator of 40 Supramax size bulk carriers. Both com- So how does your operation look on the shore side can make a little more money by doing it this way.” mercial and technical management is handled in-house. of things? I think the people and the companies that are not will-

We are the third largest owner of Supramax bulk carri- ing to adopt this approach run the risk of falling far be- ers in the world.” On the of? ce side we have operators who are giving hind and being left by the wayside.” speed instructions to the ships. In the past it would be

And as Senior Fleet Performance Manager, what one speed or another, but by leveraging the data we’re There is much talk on big data, connectivity, the In- precisely is your job? receiving from the ship and combining it with voyage ternet of Things and autonomous operations. When speci? c ? nancial data, it becomes clear that there are you look down the road, what do you see?

My job is to look at all kinds of data and to leverage a full range of speed instructions and a speci? c speed that data into intelligence for Eagle, to help make better instruction that optimizes the outcome of the voyage. I think you already hear a lot about big data and autono- decisions more often. We are optimizing everything, This is getting very detailed, but if you do this enough mous ships, but I won’t go that far. Instead I’m more from routing, to the type of anti-fouling paint we put on times with enough parameters, you have these little interested in the short term extrapolation of where we the hull, to when we dry dock our ships. You name it savings that can add up into a very large impact ? eet are going. Instead of having the crew onboard send in … if we can collect relevant data we can try to model wide over the course of a year. data once every 24 hours, you’re going to see it coming the decision space and use data to reach a decision rath- in multiple times per second. We’re going to be able to er than a feeling or convention. My job is very much As I’m sure you can attest, times are tough for many make corrective actions in real time. Instead of having about using data to make decisions. sectors in shipping at the moment. How do you see a ship operating at a sub-optimal speed or a sub-optimal this approach as bene? cial to your business? trim for a week, it’ll be two minutes and the of? ce will

The current conundrum we see is too much data. realize this is something we could improve. It will go

What do you do with the data once you have it? Yes it is a bad time for bulk carriers and bulk operators, back to the crew almost immediately so that the crew so you need to differentiate yourself. A critical way to is seeing it in real time. So I think you’re going to see

Onboard our ships we are collecting information on ev- do this is to embrace business intelligence. This is the a much shortened time horizon from the time it takes erything from ship speed to weather to fuel consump- way the industry is going. If you’re not going to em- to leverage data into good decision making. Going be- tion. We can even look at more detailed things like brace business intelligence and performance manage- yond that, you’re going to have so much data coming speci? c pressures in speci? c cylinders on the main en- ment then you will be left by the wayside. You will lack in and so many models to pull it apart that we’re going gine. All this data is sent shore-side regularly; once it’s the intelligence that others have. The Containership and to have insights into operational and technical inef? - shore-side, we are combining it with other datasets like Cruise ship sectors embraced this 5-10 years ago, and ciencies that we don’t even know about today. All of hindcast weather data and pulling it through many dif- they really have seen the light. I don’t think there is a this information moving in real time between ship and ferent models… models for optimal fuel consumption single one of those owners that is not doing this. shore is also going to open up exciting predictive capa- at a speci? c speed, draft, and weather conditions, for bilities so that continuous improvement will move from example. This allows us to compare the fuel consump- From your experience, what do you see as potential being reactive to proactive.” tion we expect from the ship against what the ship is impediments to adoption of “Big Data?” telling us it’s consuming. Jonathan Dowsett is a graduate of Webb Institute with

Now this has cascaded to where tanker owners and bulk a Bachelors - Naval Architecture and Marine Engi-

So how is that information ‘actionable?’ owners are doing it. It is tremendous change. Shipping neering and the University of Cambridge with a Mas- is very conservative, emotionally driven, with people ters - Engineering for Sustainability. Previously he was

In that example, when you have a difference in fuel operating as they always have, and now you have to with Maersk in Copenhagen.

38 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • FEBRUARY 2017

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