ShipCrunch

Helsinki, we have a problem....

Wärtsilä introduces new mission control-like remote diagnostics centre in Finland

By Ryan Skinner (email)

Later this month, Wärtsilä will take the wraps off of its brand-new condition-based maintenance (CBM) centre in Finland. The idea of such a centre is to create a Houston Mission Control-style nerve central for monitoring Wärtsilä engine and generator plants operating worldwide.

I understand that, given that a ship has the necessary bandwidth, Wärtsilä will be able to analyze a ship's engine performance, provide troubleshooting, optimization and the like. Even if it looks like the technicians below are dinking around on Google Earth and Delicious, I gotta say that the Mission Control idea is cool.

 

What would Google do - if it was in shipping: Part 3

In the age of Google, shippers with narrow interests can be profitably marketed, served 

By Ryan Skinner (email)

For this third instalment in the series inspired by Jeff Jarvis' excellent book What Would Google Do? (previous instalments here and here), I found the perfect example to illustrate Jarvis' third precept - "the mass market is dead; long live the mass of niches." Who better to talk to than Franck Kayser, the rebel shipowner who defied the market and launched The Containership Company in the teeth of a recession?  

I talked to Kayser at length about the business plan that drove him and his partners to found their company last year, and much of that will come in an article later this week. But here I'll look at how he's managed to prize away a market segment with specific needs, from the grips of the big container lines, and how this tactic can be exploited in the age of Google.

Emissions reductions in shipping: Where tomorrow's projects are

Is there a better place to see the future of shipping than Norway's maritime R&D funding plans?

By Ryan Skinner (email)

In an article two weeks ago, I talked with a leading newbuilding consultant at Wilhelmsen who believed that those shipyards who will survive this downturn will focus on R&D investments. Whether it is Norway, France, Finland, US, Korean or Chinese yards, much of this R&D funding will come from the government. So what are these countries prioritizing? The answer may be as good an indicator as any of the future of shipping.

Read how Wärtsilä designed a marketing path of its own

Designafish.com is far from run-of-the-mill marine marketing; nor were the results

By Ryan Skinner (email)  

I like to draw attention to the great, the new and the wild in thinking PR in the marine and shipping business. So I had to talk to Wärtsilä about its designafish.com campaign.

If you haven't seen it yet, go there. Now. Then come back.

I asked Mikael Simelius, Wärtsilä's VP for branding, how Designafish.com came about, what it cost them and what results they've seen.

Shipping's zero emissions imbroglio

By Ryan Skinner (email)

Yesterday's ZERO conference a very small step on the path to shipping's zero emissions future.

Perhaps it was the low turnout. Perhaps it was the ho-hum opening. But ZERO '09 convinced nobody of the future of zero emissions for shipping.

Coming to such a seminar, one can't help assessing whether zero emissions is a valid goal for shipping. At a customer seminar for a major marine engine producer last year, I heard the organizers scoff at such a goal. Their scorn for idealism reflected none too well on their green aspirations, in general, but they may have a point. Why waste time and money on starry-eyed idealism, if smaller-scale, realistic improvements suffer?

Wilh. Wilhelmsen, for one, has endorsed zero emissions as a goal, with its zero emissions concept ship, Orcelle. Per Brinchmann of Wilhelmsen was on hand at the ZERO seminar to share the status of Orcelle and the outlook for zero emissions shipping. Neither were very promising.