Vessel Performance Solutions

Our clients, co-owners of a large shipping analysis company based in Denmark, approached us with the following problem: how to schedule cargo ship maintenance to avoid unnecessary downtime and squandering of the fuel, induced by sea organisms that contaminate the propeller and the bottom of the ship? Sea vessel’s hull is susceptible to marine incrustation because of shell and weed that accumulate on its surface and slow the ship down. The same factors impact the propeller, creating vibration and wear, and causing significant damage. As a result, marine transport requires regular servicing and cleaning. During these expensive procedures the vessel cannot perform its functions, entailing losses on the ship operator.

Our clients, Jakob Buus Petersen, PhD, and Kristian Bendix Nielsen, PhD, worked out an idea to create an automatization monitoring system to control the condition of the ship through special sensors and analyse the correlation between the fuel consumption levels and the condition of the ship. Magora’s team of software developers rose to the challenge and snapped to action. We dug deep into all the nuances of the shipping industry and maritime engineering, and offered our unique solution. 

Our programmers were involved in the process of data structuring and estimating different factors to crystallize the forecasts and identify fuel consumption trends more precisely. Our designers, in their turn, contributed their expertise to create a convenient and user-friendly interface that integrated hundreds of reports that represent crucial data in an easily readable, user-friendly manner.

Upgrading  Vessel Performance Solutions web app to a new stage required creative thinking and strong mathematical skills from Magora’s development team, as well as a deep understanding of the nature of marine transport factors. Our representative spent two weeks on the client’s premises to become familiar with important technical aspects of the project, primarily with the methods of compilation and analysis of data gathered by the sensors that the client installed in the ships’ hulls.

Magora’s experts have structured the elaborate data stored by the client in disparate Excel spreadsheets and integrated it into a simple visual interface. Numerous widgets offer the following functionality:

• Monitor overall vehicle condition
• Collect statistical data for each specific ship type
• Predict fuel consumption for every particular ship and for the fleet in general
• Highlight critical peak levels
• Inform of weariness, incrustation and contamination

The performance monitoring system developed with the .NET technology gives a clear picture of the fleet’s productivity and risk levels, allowing the owners to minimize time and money spent on maintenance and fuel. Through mathematical analysis of existing operational data, the system chooses the most cost-efficient option between the two obvious solutions: to send the ship off for servicing, spending a substantial sum of money but at the same time saving up to 1 ton of fuel per day, or continue operating without inflicting downtime on cargo shipping.

The VPS software is offered by the clients as an effective ship performance management solution and has been successfully deployed on the ships of major Danish fleet operators. Vessel Performance Solutions system has proved its efficiency and enabled the ship owners to reduce expenses on ship servicing, increase shipping safety and effectively manage maintenance schedule.

Magora’s development team continues working on the project in collaboration with the client, improving the system and adding new advanced functionality.