The mobile satellite communications company Inmarsat has extended its Fleet Xpress service agreement with Maersk Supply Service (MSS) to include fleet-wide Internet of Things (IoT)-based ship management connectivity on separate bandwidths.
The digital IoT services by Inmarsat are estimated to benefit MMS with enhanced performance, efficiency and sustainability across 30 offshore vessels, which will enable precise and automated data on emissions and fuel consumption.
The extension has also enabled the provider of marine services and project solutions for offshore energy sectors, MSS, to evaluate new vessel performance tools for selection, available through Inmarsat’s Certified Application Provider (CAP) program.
“Under a long-term Fleet Xpress agreement, connectivity will include Inmarsat Fleet Connect for digital applications and a commitment to the Fleet Data IoT platform for data acquisition and uploading,” noted Inmarsat.
“Maersk Supply Service is pursuing digitalisation to support optimised fleet management and to improve vessel energy efficiency,” said Kasper Thiesen, Head of IT, Maersk Supply Service.
“By having the underlying Fleet Data, Fleet Connect infrastructure and sensor data collectors installed on our vessels, we have unlocked a portfolio of digital services which we can deploy to our fleet and bring to market in little-to-no time,” commented Thiesen, who went on to add, “As the digital ecosystem develops, more solutions will become available, increasing our ability to remain agile and support our journey to decarbonise, and entry into renewable industries.”
Fleet Data enables digitalisation across the full scope of vessel operations, using cloud-based analytics, which is agnostic of original equipment manufacturer (OEM)-specific applications or sensor technologies.
The new agreement is expected to accommodate the rapid scaling up of new IoT-based vessel performance applications fleet-wide. MSS has used Fleet Xpress in combination with Fleet Data to evaluate a number of fuel emissions and ship performance solutions provided through the Inmarsat Certified Application Provider (CAP) program.
“Maersk Supply Service has been quick to realise that dedicated Fleet Data and Fleet Connect bandwidths satisfy their digital offshore support vessel needs,” said Marco Cristoforo Camporeale, Head of Maritime Digital, Inmarsat Maritime. “Hundreds of data points are monitored on each ship, with Fleet Data covering data acquisition and uploading to the cloud, and Fleet Connect bringing the bi-directional communication to stream data to and from the ship.”
“Together, Fleet Data and Fleet Connect create a flexible solution which takes care of data acquisition and transmission across multiple applications, leaving customers to manage their data as they see fit to enhance ship performance,” Camporeale added. “This removes any integration burden and means owners and managers do not need to expend the time, energy and cost committing to single applications only to find out they are suboptimal; instead, they can assess solutions within an existing set-up.”
