Page 49: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (September 2023)

“It's about maritime digitalization.

It’s about new high speed, low latency networks. I suppose really thinking about it, it's about providing more options in terms of the service that's available.” – Andrew Peters,

CEO, AST

Watch the full interview @

Photo courtesy AST vessel owners and managers to remotely control and moni- internet traf? c, particularly in Asia. It used to be used more tor maritime assets, bringing together live asset performance for just ship-to-shore reports and getting data from one place data, predictive maintenance scheduling and environmental to another. Now it is being used as more of a tool, and par- impact reporting onto a single platform. ticularly, as I mentioned earlier, for things like crew welfare.” “It's about things like collecting sensor data, putting that infor- In Europe, he said, it's more about resilience. mation and data in the cloud to supports onshore managers who “It's about quality of service. It's about some of the other are trying to understand what's happening with their vessel,” elements like cybersecurity, visibility of assets, internet us- said Peters. “And that can be about engine overheating; it can be age, and making sure they're able to manage and monitor. So about fuel monitoring and control. If you want to control the cost it's that holistic approach to providing service, not just say- of the vessel, fuel monitoring is one sure? re way you can do it.” ing, ‘Okay, here's a bit of software. Use that. Not just saying,

To that end, AST has spent the last six to nine months build- Here's a bit of airtime.’ It's combining a true, whole service to ing – building the software development team, building its the customer. That's really what we're about.” capability, building the interoperability of that capability. “We Looking forward to 2024 and beyond, Peters is getting the had a team originally of six software developers, now we've entire AST on board with driving that single platform message got 20 and they've spent the last six to nine months now devel- with a focus on what it can deliver.

oping this new IRAMS suite of software,” said Peters. “It's about maritime digitalization. It’s about new high speed, low latency networks. I suppose really thinking about

On the Horizon it, it's about providing more options in terms of the service

Opportunities abound for AST, and when Peters looks ahead that's available,” said Peters he sees particular strength in the mid-tier market. Rather than just going down one route, it's making sure “If you look at tugs, barges, small to mid-tier vessels rather you've got the route that's right for the customer, he empha- than the big tankers, that's where we see ourselves heavily fo- sized. “it could be one of a number of networks; it could be cused,” said Peters. “Our software is applicable to that market A number of hardware operators; it could be other elements because a lot of the large customers are building their own that you have in the marketplace like data compression tech- software and they will continue to do that. But if you look at nology, for example, for video. Anything that improves that that [mid-tier] market, there are around about 105,000 vessels ? eet performance, makes that availability of management and in that marketplace.” information much more seamless across the business. For us, “I think what we are seeing ultimately is a lot of growth in that's what we are focused on.” www.marinelink.com 49

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