November 28, 2022:
Harvest Technology Group (ASX:HTG) is pleased to announce a successful first webinar on November 22 with Digital Ship, discussing the drivers and challenges to digitalisation in the maritime industry.
Leading the webinar was Technical Sales Manager – EMEA, Andy Freeman with Chief Product Officer, Damiain Brown, joined by the team at Vallianz Holdings to discuss the application of our Nodestream™ technology to their vessel.
Thank you to those who attended, please click here if you would like to view the recording. In this presentation, Andy Freeman discussed the drive for digitalisation in the maritime industry focusing on improving remote monitoring and support vessels using video and other digital technology. Please see the summary of the presentation below.
Digitalisation in the maritime sector
Businesses are asking for information, facts, data, and reports to give executives the insights they need to make informed business decisions – decisions critical to their survival, to their next contract, or to their overall strategy.
Technology is constantly evolving to transform how organisations manage their operations. Digitalisation in the maritime sector opens the door to a spectrum of possibilities, from simply viewing offshore CCTV camera footage in an onshore control room, to providing offshore workers with two-way communications and video-based support from onshore expertise, through to completely removing personnel from offshore environments to instead work from an onshore operations control room.
Drivers of digitalisation
There are many drivers for digitalisation in the maritime sector including the need to:
- Automate data capture and tracking
- Meet legislative, compliance, or industry requirements
- Improve decision making in real-time
- Increase operational awareness
- Improve operational efficiencies and reduce costs
- Improve safety outcomes by reducing the number of crew on vessels
- Provide situational awareness remotely for routine monitoring or inspection
Challenges facing digitalisation
Barriers to the uptake of digitalisation in the maritime sector include:
- Perception of digitalisation being cost-prohibitive, especially for larger fleets
- Lack of connectivity or limited bandwidth capacity available on vessels offshore and the expense involved in upgrading to sufficient capacity for streaming video/data through satellite connections
- Legacy vessels not being equipped with the latest technology or systems interfacing requires additional equipment and support
- Perception that transitioning to remote operations will be too significant a change for an organisation
The key to digitalisation is bandwidth efficiency
Technology to enable an array of data-intensive processes depends on connectivity. Advanced digital solutions can provide owners with insights into the efficiency of multiple shipboard systems and vessel performance, as well as provide applications for remote monitoring, inspection, and compliance, to reduce costs and downtime.
With shipboard processes and technology becoming more sophisticated, maritime data usage is skyrocketing. This requires considerable bandwidth and greater network stability. Data usage across the maritime sector in 2022 averaged 45% higher than in 2021 according to Inmarsat Maritime’s recent study, demonstrating the demand for efficient bandwidth optimisation in the industry.
How Harvest’s Nodestream™ technology transforms organisations
Harvest’s Nodestream™ proprietary protocol enables the ultra-secure transfer of real-time high-fidelity video, audio, and data across ultra-low bandwidth with extremely low latency. Nodestream™ enables up to 50% more efficient use of bandwidth and is equipped to survive up to 90% packet loss, allowing vessels to maximise operational efficiencies with minimal connectivity. This is achieved regardless of network quality, congestion, or location.
Our technology has a vast array of applications to transform operations in the maritime industry utilising where possible, existing vessel systems and infrastructure to perform tasks such as maritime surveillance, remote situational awareness, and remote inspection.
Case Study – Vallianz Holdings
Vallianz Holdings is an established provider of offshore support vessels and integrated offshore marine solutions across the global offshore renewable and conventional energy sector. With a steadily growing fleet of 115 vessels, Vallianz was lacking situational awareness of its vessels from its onshore headquarters in Singapore. Recognising the need to transform its operations through digitalisation, Vallianz required an advanced solution to livestream video to shore from up to 12 onboard CCTV cameras .
Harvest presented Nodestream™ as the most efficient and cost-effective way to efficiently livestream Vallianz’s onboard CCTV cameras across the Inmarsat VSAT network to their operations centre (V-Hub) based in Singapore.
For Vallianz, the adoption of the Nodestream™ technology addressed the need for remote situational awareness at a reasonable bandwidth and enabled video livestreaming with ease. This allowed them to better monitor crew and operations, improve communications between the crew and onshore team during troubleshooting, improve the onshore team’s decision-making capabilities, and facilitate a better understanding of vessel operations.
Who is Harvest Technology?
Harvest Technology Group Limited is a global leader in network-optimised remote operations that delivers real-time remote control, communication, automation, and monitoring capabilities. Harvest provides technology solutions to enable people to connect and transfer real-time, secure data, video and audio from anywhere in the world regardless of location, network quality or congestion. Founded in Australia, Harvest’s headquarters are located in Perth Western Australia, with regional bases in the U.K. and U.S.
For more information about how Harvest Technology can transform your organisation’s remote operations please contact us here. Our expert team are excited to support your digitalisation journey.
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