TODAY, sustainability is at the core of business strategies for organisations around the world. Marine companies are gearing up to make sustainability the centre of their business operations amidst the growing concern around the human impact on the marine ecosystem.

With global agencies pushing for net-zero emissions by 2050, it is time to reconsider how much industrial operations are affecting the environment. Thus, environmental compliance is at the heart of achieving sustainability goals.

ABB’s digital solutions and services are developed by recognising needs raised by the industry to increase shipping’s operational efficiency, safety onboard for crew and cargo, and sustainability through decarbonisation efforts.

ABB’s Smart Asset Management connects the ship’s crew with their technical and nautical departments in the back office, as well as ABB as the supplier of mission-critical systems. The driving force behind these solutions is the operators at sea and ashore who want to effect change in workflows through cost-effective digital technologies.

Vessels operating in harsh environments or carrying passengers do not have much time to act when there is a failure. ABB Marine & Ports provides remote diagnostic and on-call repairs to address any technical incident as quickly as possible.

The Remote Diagnostics System infrastructure functions as an enabler for ABB’s global technical support service, which is ready to support 24/7 with remote access to connected ships. This service increases uptime of ships, reduces costs, and improves lifecycle control of systems on board.

OVERSEA, an ABB collaboration with Wallenius Marine developed for optimised fleet performance, lets customers realise sustainable improvements in vessel operations, as well as improve energy efficiency, safety, and reliability. The solution, designed by ship masters, chief engineers and built with ABB Ability™ Genix Industrial Analytics and AI suite, benefits from the vast experience of the shipping company’s fleet management expertise.

Combining the benefits of digitalisation and centralised shore support staff, OVERSEA serves customers with actions for improved performance, with analysis and reporting, as well as on-demand performance consulting.

“OVERSEA solution and service helps our customers to manage their fleet operations in real time, providing data on fuel consumption, maintenance issues and voyage planning. Implementation of this solution will allow our customers to oversee their vessels’ operations and emissions fleet-wide,” says Osku Kälkäjä, Head of Digital Business, ABB Marine & Ports.

The solution will be used on board vessels, in shipowners’ offices and in shore-side Support Centres both by customers’ own personnel and OVERSEA team members. “The idea is to collect information from all the connected vessels and support the customer’s operational team to gain highest efficiencies from their operations with the help of ‘OVERSEA Support Centre as a Service’,” Mr Kälkäjä adds. 

“It’s really a process-driven solution,” Mr Kälkäjä explains, “urging collaboration by users working on the same insights being turned into actions, with the workflows ensuring the alarms are reviewed and handled accordingly.”

ABB says as a one-stop shop, OVERSEA delivers customers significant cost savings, allowing them to invest in one digital solution and service instead of using several digital tools, building up their own shore-side competence and keeping the tools future-proof. The solution is scalable to meet the various and ever-changing needs of shipping companies.