Looking into the future for Shipping

Shipping is changing fast. Competition, maritime informatics, new forms of regulation and demands driven by clients and consumers, all mean the pressure to constantly improve and deliver will be constantly ramping up.

Safety of people, looking after the planet and delivering on time and in time, will see shipping companies, ship managers, owners and operators leaping through ever more complex hoops.

KEYS TO THE FUTURE

So, what will the future likely bring? Here are the key areas we think you need to be pondering…

1. The old ways are evaporating: Say what you do, do what you say and prove it, that was a great mantra, and the International Safety Management (ISM) Code was an important mechanism for shipping That was a long time ago. Rows and rows of neat files, checklists and the hopes and dreams of management systems. These will mean little, the future will be about performance, not promises. So get used to everyone knowing everything about all the things you do. Open source shipping, with the client knowing the “code” will mean that results will matter more and more, and the secrets are laid bare.

2. New Shipping: Smart sensors are the drivers of this new shipping. Sophisticated sensors and raw computational power will enable new ways to analyse ship-generated data and gain actionable insights. This is the brave new, wonderful world of maritime informatics.

3. A new voice: The relentless rise of sensors will mean a new voice of shipping. The feedback will be the data squeezed out of every vessel. All important operational aspects onboard will have sensors (and some unimportant ones), and the outputs will tell whoever is interested all they need to know. The impact of sensors on the bottom line. An EY model suggests that under a “high-implementation” scenario, the EBITDA margin could increase by 11%–34%. Kerching.

4. So Many Questions: The levels of transparency which shipping will be entering, will mean that there is nowhere to hide. Which is great. It also means that there is no excuse for ignorance or ignoring the necessary. The old proverb of never ask questions you don’t want the answer to, well that will go out of the porthole when you have a ship asking billions of questions every minute.

5. Acting on the Actionable: With so many questions being asked, and data flowing between ship and shore, and back again. The insights gained are vital, however, the real value only comes when the actionable is actioned. Knowing things will not be enough, companies will have to make the tweaks, changes and adaptations to deliver real constant improvements.

6. Seaworthiness: This is going to be a really important issue in the years to come. Not that it isn’t now, of course. However, with terabytes of data flowing across the oceans, there will be some unwanted revelations. It could have a big impact on the commencement of a voyage if the ship keeps telling everyone about all its problems.

7. Risks will evolve: With data comes decisions, and no industry is quite as adept at using figures to weft and weave its way through business deals like marine insurance. It will be fascinating to watch how the perceived risks are assessed, or indeed if the notion of insurance changes if levels of certainty mean that the bets are no longer as profitable.

8. Bigger, but smaller too: There are still some who think that we will see ever bigger ships. Though, ports will obviously have a say in just how big is too big. Anyway, along with the leaps in economy of scale will come a parallel shrinking as smaller vessels have a new role to play. The use of rivers, canals, estuaries, as well as coastal waters is likely to rise greatly over the coming years. The necessary changes to meet emissions laws will mean that countries have to embrace new ideas, and it seems the best new one will be a very old one, water!

9. Greener propulsion: How ships are powered will be the ultimate crux of the issue. The changing role of fossil fuels, and the marginal operational gains from fuel savings, will be set to give way to new models. The last vestiges of carbon, see the LNG being sucked on. Soon though, ammonia and hydrogen will make their plays, and there is are still big hopes for molten salt nuclear reactors.