Page 48: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (September 2023)

Shipping & Ports Annual 2023CONNECTIVITY

AST Harnesses the Power of

Connectivity, Digitalization

Latest advances in digital technologies and faster, cheaper connectivity walk hand-in-hand as vessel owners of all sizes aim to cut fuel consumption, cut emissions and increase ef? ciencies. AST is aiming to do both, offering connectivity plus a suite of productivity solutions courtesy of its new Integrated Remote Asset Management System (IRAMS) solution, as CEO Andrew Peters explains.

By Greg Trauthwein he maritime industry is often lamented as slow on the

Meet IRAMS uptake of new technologies, but many of these boats

Shipowners today face a myriad of pressures from different and ships were born and raised in an analog society, entities to improve performance. There are ? nancial pressures

Tdesigned to last up to 50 years. Making the ‘digital’ to optimize operations, as getting funding for new assets is switch is neither quick, cheap or easy, and the investment in increasingly tied to the carbon footprint of operations. Leg- capital and man hours to design, install and learn the new way islators keep tightening the emission performance screws, ef- simply doesn’t make sense. fectively forcing to the scrapyard older assets that cannot be

But as a whole, maritime is starting to embrace increased optimized. Peters and his AST team see digital technology and ship connectivity to unlock the potential fuel and ef? ciency automation as providing many of the answers, a guiding prin- savings that lie within – hardware, software, faster band- ciple for its product and service development in recent years.

widths, resilience and cybersecurity – with newbuild ships

Last year AST celebrated its 30th year in business, and to- and their armada of modern equipment being the tip of the day the consolidation of all that AST offers is being rolled up iceberg. and rolled out to the maritime industry with a single software “There's a lot of change happening in the industry, but you package known as the Integrated Remote Asset Management need to think about it in a number of ways,” said Andrew System, or more simply, IRAMS.

Peters, CEO of AST in a recent interview with Maritime “We have been [essentially] six different businesses, but

Reporter TV. “The retro? tting of technology into existing we've never rolled those businesses into one,” said Peters. vessels is slightly more dif? cult, but the new vessels com- “We have a number of software areas where we are good, but ing out all-embracing with digital connectivity solutions is not consolidated into one clear platform and one clear soft- happening now.” ware solution. We've taken location-based services; we've

According to Peters, unlocking the true value that digital taken monitoring of vessel performance, particularly in rela- solutions offer is not about any one factor, such as increased tion to engine management, predictive maintenance, weather connectivity speed, rather it’s “all of these things coming to- reporting, and put that into one complete package. And that gether in a managed service portfolio,” which has served to is around some of the things that are really important in the help shape AST’s business plan and offering to the sector.

market, such as crew welfare, which is massively important.” “It's a myriad of things that come together, and it's really

IRAMS is AST’s dedicated software platform designed to starting to happen. We are de? nitely seeing it in our business,” support the maritime sector, and the aim of IRAMS is to allow said Peters.

48 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • September 2023

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