EMMA and the Octopus
No, it’s not a new Disney movie. But it is adventure on the high seas.
It’s easy to keep a ship running efficiently in calm waters. But when storms and rough seas lie ahead, what course and speed will keep the ship safe yet use the least fuel? This question is becoming more and more critical as 90% of the world’s trade is now transported by sea – over increasingly greater distances as resources are harvested from more remote locations.
Fuel can be up to 60% of a marine vessel’s operating cost. In addition to high fuel cost and tightening competition, new environmental regulations are challenging ships to make energy efficiency a priority. At the same time, they must balance this with the need to keep the ship’s systems fully available and safe – regardless of the weather.
These days the term “big data” is becoming an energy buzzword. Marine is no exception, and the coming decade will see a significant evolution in marine technology. This will include new software that uses deeper levels of data from more intelligent ships to save energy and ensure safety and availability – on individual vessels or even across entire fleets. This technology is called Vessel Information and Control (VICO).
ABB’s VICO performance management solution includes EMMATM (an advisory suite for energy efficiency) and OCTOPUS (an advisory suite for improved availability and safety).
EMMATM Advisory Suite
A toolkit to minimize the overall fuel and energy costs for a whole fleet. It has modules for both on ship and the office, allowing energy to remain a focus and part of the decision making from operators to senior management. EMMA also has the ability to look at energy factors while considering the ship‘s overall operations, so it can optimize decisions from the ideal cruising speed and trim to scheduling hull cleaning.
OCTOPUS Advisory Suite
A comprehensive motion monitoring and forecasting decision support toolkit to maximize availability, workability and safety of sea-going vessels during weather-sensitive operations. OCTOPUS combines vessel information, route and operational plans, loading conditions, vessel-specific limitations and the weather to help maximize operability while guaranteeing the safety of vessel, crew and cargo.
OCTOPUS is developed by Amarcon, a fully owned subsidiary of ABB and a leader in vessel motion prediction solutions.
All of EMMA and the Octopus’s onboard modules report to Fleet Control, a fleet management tool that offers an extensive overview for decision makers to visualize the fleet and see how its doing against key performance indicators.