ShipCrunch

Shipping technology picture by 2020, briefs from DNV

DNV published a nifty book on technology recently. Here are shipping's outtakes.

By Ryan Skinner (email)

This week I was at Høvik HQ and a DNV person shoved a fresh little publication in my hands. The tome's called "Technology Outlook 2020". Its remit was broad, from global megatrends to oil and gas, but there was a sweet spot on maritime technology. Here is the highly, highly condensed version. For the whole enchilada, see below.

The low energy ship
"Multifunctional ship types and or technological advances in drag reduction, propulsion, and materials herald new ship concepts"

• Air bubble lubrication: Uncertainties in the physical mechanisms, and the scaling and technical feasability of this system, need to be solved by 2020. Negative interaction between bubbles and the propellor must be addressed.
• Air cavity systems: 10% fuel consumption decrease is possible. Negative side effects include destabilizing free surface under the hull, and energy loss when bubbles pass through the propellor inflow.
• Hybrid materials: Widespread adoption by 2020 is unlikely, due to high costs, manufacturing and recycling challenges, and fire resistance issues.
• Hybrid propulsors: Though capital costs are high, these can cut fuel costs by 10%, depending on utilization and ship type.
• Ballast water free ships: Even after 2020, ships without ballast water will be more expensive to build and have construction challenges. Competition from onboard treatment and port facilities will be tough.

The green-fueled ship
Implementation of technologies like LNG, biofuel, wind or nuclear face significant technical and economic challenges, and the time frame ranges from a few years for LNG to decades for nuclear.

• Natural gas: Changes in CO2 emissions range from a 20% cut to a net increase. Newbuild costs are on average 10-20% higher than diesel ships. Within 10 years, a considerable share of new ships (particularly short-sea) will use gas fuel.
• Kites: These can substitute up to 2000 kW of propulsion power, and require little of the crew (but can foul deck equipment). Expect to see retrofits over the next 10 years.
• Biofuels: Biodiesel and crude plant oils are most promising, but challenges include fuel instability, corrosion, microbe growth and poor cold flow. Price and availability will probably decide.
• Nuclear: "....will not be commercially available for civilian shipping by 2020." Barriers: nuclear proliferation, investment costs and societal acceptance.

The electric ship
"Supply vessels and ferries with high fluctuations in power demand are the most suitable candidates..."

• Hybrid ships: By 2020, these will mix conventional and superconducting motors and generators, fuel cells and batteries, first to service, passenger and small cargo ships. For larger ships, probably only as auxiliary power.
• Marine fuel cells: Initially, auxiliary power, such as hotel loads, then supplementing propulsion in hybrid electric ships. "During the nexst decade, fully commercial marine fuel cells will become available."
• Batteries: By 2020, a battery pack of 0.4 MWh, with a 4 MW peak load, could weigh 2-4 tonnes and take up one cubic meter. Nano-technology advances may lead to a breakthrough here.
• High-temperature superconductors: These could massively reduce engine size, but require complex cooling technology. Redundancy will be an issue.
• Cold ironing: By 2020, standardised connections will be available in many ports, and on both newbuild and existing ships. Hurdles are sufficient grid capacity on land (for big ports) and infrastructure (for small ports)

The digital ship
"While some e-Navigation technologies are presently in use by front runners in shipping, by 2020 the majority of the fleet will have followed."

• ECDIS: A key e-Navigation technology, coupling to non-navigation systems could extend its potential to port scheduling and customs clearance. Competence on ECDIS will be vital.
• Advanced weather routing: Towards 2020, accuracy and resolution of met-ocean data will be better, along with data collection from ships, and reductions of fuel consumption up to 10% common.
• Piracy detection and deterrence: High-performance radars reaching up to 10 Nm by 2020 will be key. Service providers will use satellite info to provide advanced warning services.
• Ship-port synchronization technology: "By 2020, berth planning algorithms, using satellite tracking and weather routing, will be integrated into ship-port communication systems."

The arctic ship
"Increased demand for seaborne trade in the Arctic will lead to the introduction of larger vessels that require novel icebreaking services."

• Novel icebreakers: Over the next decade, oblique icebreakers (sideways operation in heavy ice) are expected to be widely adopted for Arctic operations.
• Iceload monitoring: These are expected to become prevalent by 2020, so Arctic vessels know when to slow down, and when to find alternate routes, to prevent damage in ice.
• Arctic evacuation vessels: Special lifeboats for evacuation in Arctic conditions will employ an Archimedes' screw concept for movement, with two large, screw-like pontoons on each side of the vessel.
• Ice routing software: Such software will by 2020 provide routing based on ice conditions, from sat images, weather observations, ice charts and weather and ice model forecasts. This will allow navigators to programme ideal routes.
• Ice navigation training simulator: Given the lack of competent personnel, these are expected to gain broader usage. Challenges include modelling ship behaviour in different conditions.

The virtual ship
"To manage the complexity and risk inherent in innovative solutions, there is a drive towards use of advanced, model-based techniques for assessing novel concepts and technologies....from a lifecycle perspective."

• Integrated ship design tools: By 2020, these will support distributed, parallelised and coordinated execution of design tasks using multi-processor architectures and internet infrastructure. A crucial factor will be access to reliable data.
• Model-based ship machinery design: "Modular computer tools will be available to model, simulate and optimise the operation of machinery systems under realistic operational profiles."
• Model-based hull design: By 2020, hull design tools will allow design towards sub-optimal operating conditions, compared to today's systems, which are based on still-water conditions and design loads.
• Large-scale demonstrators: Showcase projects combining industrial and shipowner partners will accelerate innovative technologies to commercialisation.

That's it. If you want the whole book, drop a comment and I'll put it in the post to you! 

 

Mandatory ECDIS the worst thing that could have happened?

They say everyone chooses their own kind of hell. For shipping, it just might be the rules.

By Ryan Skinner (email)

It's total sacrilege, but I'm going to say it. Maybe DNV f*cked up.

Now, I have all the respect in the world for the guys over at Høvik. They're brilliant. Even if I kind of panned their Quantum thingy, they're still leagues ahead of most outfits in this business. They're what passes for bleeding edge in (let's be frank) an oftentimes dull industry.

But consider this ECDIS business. Over and over again, people pushing ECDIS cite the DNV studies, which demonstrated that mandatory ECDIS would reduce groundings by some dizzyingly high percentage. It was more or less on the back of these studies that the IMO went whole-hog and made these chart computers mandatory on all SOLAS ships PDQ.

The rules logic goes awry on the graph where x = some not-too-distant point in the future and y = a metric tonne of rulebooks. Suddenly, a rule requiring every master to have his mother on the bridge to hold his hand, doesn't work. The sheer weight of rules sinks the ship.

Now, I'm a big fan of ECDIS. It's ingenious like the GPS in a car, which I don't use but love on rentals. And perhaps that's the difference. No one mandates a GPS. No one argues that every GPS operates a little differently. No one moans about the need to update a GPS now and then. No one needs to take any special training to use one.

Would it not be better for regulators to get far out of the way, and let technology adoption take its own natural path? If ECDIS is just an example, is the profusion of rules making shipping safer, or more dangerous?

In order to apply a little science to this question, I've created/found a few graphs that help illustrate the problem. The first illustrates the expanding stack of rules that apply to shipping operations:

As we can see from this well-documented study, the amount and detail of rules-making has grown out of control. This chart is anecdotal, yes, but anecdotal evidence from shipping companies suggest it's approximately true. Is it having a beneficial effect on safety? Here are two charts taken at (relative) random regarding maritime casualties.

Granted, increasing volume of accidents and value lost may easily stem from a much larger world fleet. Nonetheless, it doesn't seem as if more rules = more safety. Is it then wise to create, yes, even more rules?

When considering mandatory ECDIS, perhaps it would be best to look at accident figures for high-speed craft (ferries and the like). ECDIS has been mandatory on these for many years; has it resulted in fewer incidents? Anyone have the data on that?

Both shipowners and officers are rightly grumpy about ECDIS mandation. Many people are simply PO'd that this thing's being pushed down their throats. Officers hear that they will get dual ECDIS and paper will be gone, and they worry. What about viruses? What about system crashes? Others rejoice.

I know the ECDIS fan-boy crowd is going to come down on me hard for this. They argue (in many cases, rightly) that without mandation the merchant fleet simply won't do ECDIS. Why? Because it's costly. And that may be true. But costs come down. Applications increase. And pretty soon ECDIS would be mandatory for entirely different reasons, not legal ones.

You can legislate yourself into a thicket, and I fear this may be happening more and more often in shipping and at the IMO.

Crying for innovation

They're famous for it: Innovators and frustration with "how things are". Here's one.

By Ryan Skinner (email)

I don't know Alex Vari. I've never met him, and I know basically nothing about what he has designed. What I do know is this: He's well-frustrated with conservatism in shipping. It's probably what gives innovators their spark - a bit of frustration, a bit of ingenuity, a bit of "goddamn it if this thing can't be done better".

He sent me a mail titled "marine innovation", and I thought it was a great little heartfelt essay on the state of innovation in shipping. I asked him if I could simply repost his letter here, and he said that I should do it. If you read it, and want to contact Alex directly, you can do so here.

My interest in this topic is that for the last few YEARS now I have been seeking support for a project I have for the development of a TOTALLY new hull design. I believe my design will overcome most of the problems currently faced by power-driven, larger vessels with regard to high and efficient speed.

Without going into the actual design itself, you may be interested to learn of my experiences in this quest. Almost without exception, all of the companies I have contacted so far are unprepared to handle the subject of innovation. They have no procedures in place to handle these types of approaches. In some cases, they are openly hostile when you indicated that there may be another way to look at the problem.

The problem I think is that basically they have no understanding of what innovation really means. Innovation rarely comes from a direction in which you are looking. Changes are usually incremental and we can handle these types of events. Innovation, however, is usually classed as - at best - a disruptive event, and - at worst - a destructive one.

...

It's all very well for the current players to pat each other on the back and carry on with business as usual, saying they are making changes and improvements. They have nicely divided the pie into its segments and are doing nicely, thank you. If, however, someone from outside of the "club", without the accepted credentials, experience, etc., raises the possibility that there may be another way, well, I can tell you from personal experience it's an uphill battle.

I suppose it's only natural. There is even a problem of language. How do you describe something new using old terminology. Craft are either displacement or planing or a bit of both, right? There is, however, another way, but as yet I have no word for it nor can I succinctly describe how it works.

Just a few thoughts about innovation from a frustrated innovator.

What do you fellow innovators think? Is this a common sore point?

Shake your money maker - Start-up Profile: Light Structures

Not exactly a start-up but in full commercial ramp-up mode, this little outfit's got big potential

By Ryan Skinner (email)

One of Light Structures' founders, Karianne Pran, holds a Light Structures fibre-optic sensor, together with Managing Director Inge Paulsen

It wasn't long ago I saw a spooky video showing the twisting and swinging of a (usually) straight corridor running the length of a ship in a storm. To those of us who only the dry, commercial end of the shipping business, seeing how these rigid structures turn fluid in rough seas is, well, unsettling.

And what does a lifetime of these contortions do to steel? Basically, every bulker afloat has a basic, mechanical system to measure lifetime stresses on the hull. A small, research-driven company called Light Structures reinvents this basic task in a way that may significantly extend the lifetime of ships.

Whose ship is it anyway? Part five: Where the rubber hits the road

Are efforts to integrate components actively or passively hampered by the supply industry?

By Ryan Skinner (email)

In the first four parts of this series, we studied how software integration issues were hindering progress in, among other areas, environmental improvements to shipping, and looked at a few avenues for addressing these issues.

These efforts to drive shipboard systems into a common framework are, however, not gaining wider traction in the industry yet. Equipment suppliers are loath to embrace an arrangement in which shipowners could more easily switch out their systems with competitors', or seek service or spare parts from third parties. For many suppliers, the ability to offer competitive prices comes at the cost of proprietary systems and vendor lock-in. The suppliers themselves, however, characterize the lack of a common framework as the unavoidable outcome of a fragmented industry.

As for the shipyards, most if not all lack the sophistication to push for ship-wide integration of systems; they do not have the in-house software engineering experience, and therefore the desire, to drive all of their suppliers into a common software architecture. "The shipyards are like LEGO brick-builders; they just put the pieces together. If you're going to ask them to integrate all of the systems, you're going to have to consider paying a lot more for your ship," said Arnesen. He confirms, however, that Wilhelmsen is currently negotiating with shipyards, which are suddenly more pliant and willing in the recession, to address these kinds of software architecture issues.

Some question whether an open architecture would lead to security and safety risks, as faults in one component could spill over into a ship-wide problem. Fagerhus responded to this concern with exasperation: "It's a common complaint, but these same suppliers often won't offer warranties on software faults in their own systems. So it's specious for them to express fears of other components contaminating their products." Further evidence dispelling the safety argument is the use of open software architecture in the US Navy and much of the process industry.

The conclusion of this development cannot be foretold, but one thing is certain: Increasing costs and complications, coupled with demands to environmental performance, will force a harmonization in the software systems running merchant ships. What remains is a power struggle over who will establish the nature of that harmonization: a coalition of owners, a few large suppliers, regulators or a gaggle of idealistic engineers?

For more details and interviews on the subject of a common software framework in the marine industry, follow this blog, where posts will continue to explore the topic.

Whose ship is it anyway? Part four: Open efforts to address standards

A coalition of Norwegian shipowners and a Maltese mosquito take different tacts to software integration issues.

By Ryan Skinner (email)

In the last part of this series, Wartsila explained how it sought to solve software integration problems by offering an entire portfolio within their own proprietary system. Now we look at two different efforts to set up an open standard.

For Arnesen and Wilhelmsen, there are at least two other viable strategies to creating a shared software framework across the industry. One is a cooperation called "Environment-Friendly Shipowners". The other is called MARSEC-XL. The first is a small coalition of shipowners coordinated by the Norwegian Shipowners' Association to run common projects and share expertise on green shipping. The second is an industry- and EU-backed organization driving open platforms in marine software engineering, where Arnesen has taken an advisory council position.

Environment-Friendly Shipowners includes five major industrial shipowning companies in Norway: Wilh. Wilhelmsen, BW Gas, Hoegh Autoliners, Grieg Shipping and The Torvald Klaveness Group. Together, the group has begun sharing experiences, and has developed a co-operation that includes an effort to drive software development around open protocols. The result they're after? The kind of system interoperability Arnesen felt was lacking in order to create a consolidated picture of a ship's operation.

The structure of Environment-Friendly Shipowners may enable its success. Historically, efforts to build an open software framework or architecture in any industry have stranded when too many players are involved. An open framework competitor to Microsoft called OpenDocs foundered because each of its supplier partners sought to squeeze its aims into the framework. And AUTOSAR's success may be partially attributed to shrugging off government backing, and thus avoiding too many hands in the process.

MARSEC-XL takes another approach entirely. Spinning off some of the same spirit of LINUX's founder Linus Torvalds, they hope to fashion a community of contributors to develop pieces of an open framework around marine systems and software architecture. The beauty of this approach is that it lifts up the entire industry without giving any single company a benefit. An open platform gives marine technology companies and their products a foundation for communication and interoperability, without crimping competition.

Ironically, the beauty of these processes is also their foremost obstacle. It requires a level of trust and an acknowledgement of mutual gain between competitors. "Once you have a success story, then the big players realize that there is a cost in not being involved with this, and they adopt it. But getting to that first success story is the challenge that we're working on now," says MARSEC-XL co-founder and CEO Geir Fagerhus, who saw the same kinds of events unfold in the cellular phone industry two decades ago while working for Ericsson.

The foundation has gained some government seed funding to begin work structuring a project that would result in an open architecture for shipboard systems. An official with the EU's Directorate General for Information Society and Media confirmed that they viewed open platform projects like MARSEC-XL's as crucial for maintaining Europe's competitive advantage in the maritime industry. Support for these kinds of open platforms can be seen explicitly and implicitly in recent EU policy of funding industrial R&D projects.

Whose ship is it anyway? Part three: Big supplier as integrator?

Big suppliers like Wartsila offer to integrate the whole ship within their proprietary systems. A good thing?

By Ryan Skinner (email)

In the first parts of the series, we looked at industry-wide struggles to integrate software and components, then how the automotive industry tackled similar problems. There, big carmakers drove change; in shipping, the only consolidated parties are suppliers. Are they driving change? Is it even in their interest?

The response of one big supplier - Wartsila - takes a page from Apple's playbook: Integrate, but within your own platform (the "walled garden" approach).

Wartsila VP Magnus Miemois describes how Wartsila acquired three ship design companies so that it could provide what he described as "energy management systems". They choose to answer some of the common framework questions by putting everything in their own framework. The company's turned the thinking into a product, called Wartsila 3C, launched at this year's SMM as "...the first system to integrate the entire vessel's control into one solution."

"We focus on providing the best ship end-to-end. If it's a Wartsila component that fits the need, that's what we use. If it's a competitor, we'll use that too. But like all of the big suppliers, our automation systems are proprietary. We do some plug and play, yes, but today still only within the domain of our portfolio," said Miemois.

Some shipowners are clearly leaping at the offer for more well-integrated ships. Wartsila's sold integrated design and propulsion systems to shipowners in Norway, China, India, Germany, Brazil and the UK. These companies have effectively staked their futures to Wartsila's long-term competitiveness and viability.

The drawback to creating a common framework by choosing one supplier may be a lack of flexibility down the line. What if you need to add a component that doesn't talk to the systems from your main supplier? What if the main supplier goes belly-up, or it changes its systems, which requires owners to make expensive upgrades? What are the industry's alternatives to a ship-wide software framework determined from supplier to supplier?

If the AUTOSAR model won't work because shipowners are too many and too uncoordinated, perhaps there's another model for collaboration. In the process automation industry, there was a new angle taken to the AUTOSAR case. While AUTOSAR was driven by a few big buyers (carmakers), the process industry saw two-dozen suppliers work together with Microsoft to develop an open standard, called OPC, to allow interoperability of components. Why can't a number of marine suppliers work together on a marine OPC?

"We'd be interested in a development along those lines, but it hasn't happened yet," says Miemois, who has some familiarity with the OPC case. "Some might argue that we could lead such a process. For the time being, though, the industry's too disorganized. In this environment, our value lies in being able to deliver systems that are reliable, within a reasonable budget and with high quality. To do that, we need to maintain a certain degree of control."

In the next installment, we see how Wilhelmsen has eschewed this kind of approach, and chosen two other, slightly different paths, to the goal of a more integrated ship.

Whose ship is it anyway? Part two: An automotive forerunner

Major car manufacturers solved software integration problems with open-source architecture. Something for shipping?

By Ryan Skinner (email)

In the first part of this series, a Wilhelmsen manager described the challenges shipowners face with software integration issues. Failure to integrate components and data are creating noticeable costs, and risks. But how can the industry fix the situation? The automotive industry, it turns out, has seemingly conquered this problem.

In the 1990s, automakers saw the same kinds of increasing electronic sophistication as the shipping industry is seeing today. More and more of their products' value was getting tied up in software-dependent electrical and electronic components. And the suppliers of these components each used a proprietary system.

Naturally, carmakers viewed a development where they felt increasingly locked in to, and reliant on, specific vendors with increasing alarm. The answer from several carmakers, including BMW, DaimlerChrysler, Volkswagen and Toyota was AUTOSAR: AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture, which stands for an open, standardized software architecture for the automotive industry.

Said AUTOSAR spokesman Dr. Stefan Bunzel: "Switching from proprietary software to standardized software architecture offers cost and capacity benefits for everyone involved in automotive electronics development." He further describes AUTOSAR's goals "to define standards that will allow the reuse of hardware, software and architecture from one vehicle to another, while allowing the individual companies to maintain their distinctive intellectual property."

What he's saying, in other words, is that the carmakers were able to change their relationship to suppliers from one of dependency to one of plug and play. Now Mercedes-Benz could simply switch out a Bosch fuel injection system on its newest C-class with a Siemens one, without re-engineering the whole car. And complementary systems from different suppliers could be designed into a car model without struggling through a complicated integration process.

The AUTOSAR case is, unfortunately, not transferable directly to the realm of shipbuilding. First and foremost, AUTOSAR was able to leverage the power of a number of major carmakers in a relatively consolidated global automotive market. Shipowning and shipbuilding, on the other hand, are markets of many hundreds, if not thousands, of players. It would seem the organizational inertia, as far as numbers go, is with the big suppliers of shipping, and not the owners or builders.

In the next instalment of the series, we ask one of those big suppliers - none other than Wärtsilä - whether it's used its size to an advantage in terms of software integration.

Whose ship is it anyway? A five-part investigative series

The rising software content of merchant ships sets the stage for an epic struggle over ships' components and data.

By Ryan Skinner (email)

This is the first part of a five-part series that studies the impact that software is having on the commercial shipping industry. The series will feature a major shipowner (Wilhelmsen Lines), a major supplier (Wärtsilä), a coalition under the aegis of the Norwegian Shipowners' Association, a Maltese centre of excellence (MARSEC-XL) and a major auto manufacturer coalition (AUTOSAR).

What's at issue? What's the cost? Who does this affect? What are the solutions? Who's involved in trying to solve them? All of these questions will be addressed in the series. These pieces will be cross-published in Lloyd's List. Join the discussion with comments to this series of posts! Now here's the series:

General Manager Knut L. Arnesen of Wilhelmsen Lines Malta shares some of his company's recent frustration with components onboard their ships: "We need to reduce our emissions, but - to do that - we need to be able to make a consolidated picture of what's going on in the ship. Then we can modify and measure; basically: run iterations. But it's been a maddening process to get all the data from component suppliers into a common format," said Arnesen.

It's a common and increasing complaint. Technology is coming to ships so quickly and in so piecemeal a fashion that it is creating a threat both to profits and safety. Commissioning problems and delays with newbuildings coming out of the shipyard, human error issues on the bridge and painful software decisions in refits are often related to a lack of software integration in ships' equipment.

A quick description of what is meant by software integration: At the heart of every automated component is a piece of software code, often a very large piece. Unless the software from different automated components is organized into a common framework, those components won't work well together and data from one will be unavailable to the other. That's Wilhelmsen's and Arnesen's quandary.

The answer is to organize software into a framework that is shared - in other words, a common architecture for shipboard components' software. This has so far been missing from the shipping industry, and its absence is starting to make itself felt. Arnesen confirms that interoperability challenges are costly, and getting worse as ships grow increasingly sophisticated.

Yet the process of arriving at the kind of shared framework that allows shipboard systems to communicate easily to one another can be a long and painful one for the industry. Why? It challenges the business models, and by extension the livelihoods, of many suppliers, as well as the organizational power of a fragmented shipping industry.

In the next instalment, we see how the automotive industry solved its serious software integration problems - a model for shipping?  

Cheaper Offshore Windmills? Start-up Profile: Windflip

Award-winning outfit that hopes to install floating windmills from a barge gets start capital

By Ryan Skinner (email)

The idea, says the founders, came from Statoil's difficulties installing its floating Hywind windmills two years ago. Towing the huge floating windmills out to sea while upright was slow, expensive and weather-dependent. So two students found something better: a barge that could carry them lying down, then flip itself - and the windmill - upright, on location.

That's Windflip. The two students who developed the concept at Norway's NTNU have managed to get enough start-up financing in place to look for deeper pockets further afield. And there's a good chance they'll find them.