Technology is Paving the Way for the Future of Shipping

Technology is Paving the Way for the Future of Shipping
09/06/2021 https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/technology-is-paving-the-way-for-th...

Digitalization in shipping shouldn’t be regarded as a thing for the future, or some abstract idea that could (or not) offer valuable contribution to the way the industry works. It’s actually happening right now and has been for quite some time. New software and hardware are taking over, in order to assist ship owners in the way they can operate their fleets.

Maritime Optima is a technology company aiming to deliver a premium service to shipowners, traders, cargo owners and brokers. The company recently signed a 5- year contract with Orbcomm, a Nasdaq listed company and one of the world’s biggest global AIS coverage providers. With this agreement, the company is receiving updated AIS positions from more than 600 satellites and terrestrial AIS senders on more than 65 000 vessels in real-time. That is a lot of AIS data.

Additionally, through this partnership, Maritime Optima can provide access to all the vessels’ voyage history, develop new features with high accuracy and quality, based on its users’ input and feedback. The company says that “AIS has known weaknesses and will be only one source for data input, the concept is based on; satellite data, public data and user-generated data. We have a strong technical team with a combination of young and experienced developers, headed by our CTO Pål-Robert Engnæs, exKongsberg Maritime, who has been working with the AIS protocols for years. High quality and frequently updated AIS data are costly and hard to achieve.

“As a startup, we are very proud to be able to sign this agreement and entering a long-term partnership with ORBCOMM, securing our users and developers frequent and reliable AIS data”, says the founder and CEO Kristin Omholt-Jensen

This new agreement is part of the company’s drive to offer a comprehensive service to its clients. Among other things, Maritime Optima is now offering the following:

• Last port of call, real-time position and next destination with ETA for more than 65000 vessels sorted into segments and sub-segments
• A comprehensive vessel data center where each vessel has a machinereadable questionnaire template attached, where you can make private copies of any of the public questionnaires
• Decide how and with whom you want to share /exchange the vessel data with, showing whom has shared what with whom in a user log
• Create lists of ports and vessels and follow the vessels in real time in the maps
• A structured and indexed port database showing port activities, tidal info, bunker grades, prices and availability easy to expand
• Add weather map and ECA, Load lines, INL, Polar Code as data layers
• Sea ice maps, piracy maps and congestions in the canals updated every 24th hours
• An advanced route planner letting you estimate distance and time from any of the vessel’s positions to any of the ports.
• Create and store position lists and view the vessels in the map

“Working in the maritime industry means you always explore opportunities in a changing market. You continuously collect information to make the right decisions, and you need quick and reliable information about vessels and their positions. With Maritime Optima you can create a real maritime office on your laptop or mobile phone, and adjust it under your needs, with many free chartering tools available for free.

The company is committed to develop the software based on feedback from the users and together with the industry. Forward your feedback and you quickly will receive new features back “free-of-charge”. The goal is to develop the best chartering software there is, though this will take time.

It is free to register an account in Maritime Optima. Just follow the link: https://app.maritimeoptima.com/. You can log in to your account from different devices and your work is synced across your devices. Today, the company has close to 8 000 registered users, and is the fastest growing maritime software.

The company argues this “digitalization wave” will change the maritime industry for ever, also the way we organize our office work and the way we connect between the offices and the vessels. However, the sad news is there are no “low hanging fruits, no quick (smart) fixes at no costs” to obtain long term sustainable digital advantages. The wave we are facing now is a DEEP digitalization, and you might need to replace or reshape the old rigid software systems, which determines how you structure your work. The wise man Albert Einstein once said: “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.”
Source: Maritime Optima