RIDE THE DIGITAL WAVE
RIDE THE DIGITAL WAVE
by : SAMI J . ANTEROINEN
Finnish research-industry collaborative consortium INTENS has committed over € 13 million for the next three years , with € 5.6 million funding from Business Finland , to proactively advance , promote and digitalise Finnish marine industries . The special focus area of INTENS is energy efficiency improvement and emissions reduction of ship energy systems .
The INTENS ( Integrated Energy Solutions to Smart and Green Shipping ) consortium consists of 14 Finnish marine companies ( with e . g . Wärtsilä , Meyer Turku , Deltamarin and Parker Hannifin in the ranks ) and five research organisations ( including Aalto University and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland ).
Vice President of Digital Engineering Johannes Hyrynen from VTT credits the great support from Business Finland Arctic Seas program and the consortium partners for the creation of the “ industry-wide , ambitious and committed consortium ”. Working together , it is possible to boost the digitalisation and digital transformation of the Finnish marine sector and promote top-level marine expertise globally , he believes .
FUTURE-PROOF MARITIME
Finland has been one of the leading countries in the digitalisation and automation
of the marine industries . The INTENS project aims to deepen that digital transformation into the whole chain of the marine cluster , from R & D to innovation , design , manufacturing and operation . The generated novel solutions and innovations can largely improve energy efficiency and reduce emissions of ship energy systems , and potentially bring dynamic disruption into the marine industries .
Chief Advisor Matti Säynätjoki from Business Finland admits that expectations for this co-operation are high . “ By combining two well-known Finnish strong capabilities , maritime technology and digitalisation , Finnish companies create new competitive edge for themselves in the international markets .”
According to Säynätjoki , the companies participating in INTENS will be able to develop new components , systems , software products and knowledge-based services with higher added value .
MASTERING COMPLEXITY
Kari Sillanpää , Head of R & D at Meyer Turku , says that INTENS is a useful collaboration platform in developing efficient and reliable ways to utilise digital virtual ship models throughout ship ’ s life-cycle .
“ This way , we ’ re better equipped to meet the challenges originating from the
ever-increasing complexity of large cruise ships .”
Sillanpää admits that consortiums of this kind sometimes tend to lean on the theoretical and therefore he was , at first , a little sceptical about the business benefits of INTENS . As the activities have kicked off , he has been pleasantly surprised :
“ There are concrete actions , with research institutes giving great support to business pursuits .”
HYBRID MODELS EMERGING
According to Sillanpää , virtual ship models continue to offer a lot of promise : there are models with visual or technical orientation or some combination of these , and they are used for design as well as operation of ships .
“ When we have models that can go back and forth – take something from designing to operating and vice versa – the production reaps the benefits . Through the use of combo models , whole new opportunities are opening up .”
More and more , we are seeing a trend in maritime where Big Data and Artificial Intelligence are used creatively to power up a new generation of virtual models .
“ The next big thing is finding smarter ways to combine different pieces of information .” �
14 seatec 2 / 2018