Data Driven Fleet Monitoring and Circular Economy

The maritime industry is intensively embracing green thinking. According to IMO’s (International Maritime Organization) GHG (Greenhouse Gas) strategy, the total annual GHG emissions from international shipping should be reduced by at least 50% by 2050 compared to 2008. Shipping adopts policies to comply with the set target, including ship re-design, structural retrofit, use of low-carbon material, and the installation of abatement technologies [1]. All these approaches pave the way to circularity in the maritime economy, abandoning the linear model in vessel lifetime (construction-operation-scrapping) and adopting lean management, re-manufacturing, and re-usability of the asset. On the other hand, these approaches are cost-intensive and positive expected ROI (Return on Investment) is under question. In the SmartShip project, we give prominence to data-driven ship monitoring by delivering an ICT (Information and Communication Technology) & IoT (Internet of Things)-enabled holistic cloud-based maritime performance and monitoring system for the entire lifecycle of a ship, aimed to optimize energy efficiency, emissions reduction, fuel consumption, while, at the same time, include circular economy concepts in the maritime field while capitalizing on available COTS (Commercial-of-the-Shelf) technologies and limited R&D (research and development). In this context, we integrate fleet management into a circular-by-design economy. Our approach supports a cost-effective strategy, where data analysis drives decisions in ship operation and maintenance. In lieu of the above, SmartShip is targeted to foster knowledge exchange between experts in complementary technology fields (IoT, Data Analytics, Visualization Tools, Optimization Algorithms) applied in the frameworks of Energy Efficiency and Emissions management, towards a holistic framework for energy efficiency and emissions control, thus materializing the next-generation paradigm for the maritime industry.