Shake Ships Like a Polaroid Picture
How can we ensure our digital transformation captures everything we do and improves it? That is the challenge for shipping, “digit-i-sing” our outputs and then “digit-ali-sing” them. Making real on the promises of maritime informatics.
A long time ago, in an ocean far away, I was the Captain of a beautiful white ship. In those idyllic days, I took many, many photos. Now sadly these memories are all shoved in a tin box. Not much use to anyone, just souvenirs caught in a dusty and fading world of analogue.
Then I whipped out my phone, snapped the original and suddenly my reminiscences are digitised. Whoosh, my past is now as potentially digital as my future. That is “digitisation”, the act of changing the state of our information.
What happens next depends on how useful that effort is. We either just keep the photo saved on one device, or we build on the state change with more action. The real change comes when we share! Suddenly my young self is doing the rounds, Facebook lights up, Twitter melts down, “Hey, have you seen I used to have hair”.
The digitised information creeps into the digitalised world. With every click or share, the photo becomes more powerful. The newly digital is given purpose by the acceleration and potential energy invested further into it. This got me thinking about shipping and data, and what we do with all our shipboard information.
WHAT PHASE ARE WE AT?
Digitisation is the process of converting information from a physical format into a digital one. When this process is leveraged to improve business processes, it is called “digitalisation”. We can think of digitisation as the tree chopped into logs, whereas digitalisation is everyone warming their buns around the roaring fire.
It is important to remember, digitalisation carries implicit positives, whereas digitisation does not until it is consumed. Digitisation alone, without following through and doing something with the newly created files, is not much use to anyone.
Is shipping in the digitising phase or the digitalisation phase? Or are we caught tantalisingly between both? Are we putting the right effort into digitisation, and then matching that with the requisite push to digitalise?
The issue is not so much the move to digital, but of the next step. Shipping has, in the main, embraced a great leap forward in the past decade. However, there is more to be done. Alas, it seems that many are caught between the digitisation and digitalisation gap.
TRANSFORMATIONAL POWER
Caught in a data gap is a dangerous place for any industry or business. Time and money have been spent, but we are not yet realising the benefits or full potential. The true value comes in the ability, potential and capability of digitalisation. Being able to access, share, discuss, edit and use the information is the result, and the benefits are the digital transformation. This is the impact caused by the process of digitalisation.
It can be hard to measure all the impacts and benefits, but some fundamentals can and should be assessed. Are your ships more efficient? Using less fuel with enhanced performance? Are accidents reduced? Are people happier onboard? Are clients feeling the love and sense of engagement?
Are more things shared? Is there a sense of connection to the ships and what is going on onboard? Does it feel like the ship is closer to the office? Are managers able to see and check information without hassling the crew? Does business feel easier? Are we getting more done, and are we able to embrace more opportunities?
There needs to be a warm glow from digitalisation, one which takes the efforts of digitisation and magnifies them exponentially. These are strategic decisions, you digitise to have something to use, in order to then improve, and to drive processes forward.
THE BIG DEBATE
Shipping’s digital debate has been rolling for around a decade but is still gathering pace. While some have been relatively quick to digitise, there are still random bits and bytes squirrelled away, many people, processes and ships are not fully connected, and often potential wins are discarded. We should never waste data.
It seems we have not fully made the jump yet to digitalisation. Perhaps because it does not provide the reassurances or certainties of the past. Never ask a question you don’t want to know the answer to, runs the old proverb. With digitalisation, there are a billion questions every second, and all that information needs to be managed and leveraged.
Now though standing still is going astern. If companies cannot or will not put the sticks down and make their data work, then the business ramifications are clear. Costs will rise versus competitors, clients will look aghast, and good people will likely go looking for better jobs.
The stakes are high. Not unsurprisingly, the biggest companies in shipping and logistics have been hugely eager to embrace digitalisation. Thomas Wilhelmsen, CEO of the Wilhelmsen Group said, “To succeed it is necessary to share knowledge and experiences between companies and industries, to create new ways of working and better customer interfaces and services.”
Alas, such playing nicely with each other is not what shipping is renowned for. So, it would be all too easy to lose the initiative and miss out on all that the digital push can bring.
SUCCESS OR FAILURE
What you do with the digitised data will later either be termed success or failure. There is too often a pause between shifting from paper to making progress. It seems that unfortunately many solutions on offer today are merely about the moving process, shifting documents and data into a digital format. They aren’t really about doing more than that.
So, digitalisation is about smartening up. Only with smarter ships, smarter fleets and smarter global logistics will the benefits start to be felt. We are still coming up against barriers, and incredibly there is still a need for behavioural change. It is coming, but perhaps more slowly than the optimists may have wanted or expected.
As an industry, shipping’s passage towards digitalisation is well underway, we have made our early waypoints, and we can now see the lights of benefits looming on the horizon. There is still so much more to do, and the pressure is ramping up as the demands and opportunities of maritime informatics and standardised digital data sharing, hove into view.
Today though, the message is clear as data collection, alarms, sensor feedback, monitoring, and onboard diagnostics, all paint a picture of the modern vessel. They allow sharing, discussion, visualisation, validation and reference points. Suddenly the vessel has a voice, and we should start listening.
