Changes in Maritime Shipping Industry

Since the Industrial Revolution, technology and innovation have affected many industries, and the maritime shipping industry is not an exception. Numerous technologies have influenced the maritime shipping industry, and it is increasingly accelerating in the face of change. Major changes have been observed in its business model as it is moving towards embracing various digital technologies such as smart technologies and achieving sustainability through less fuel consumption and release.

 The marine shipping industry is expected to have a smart marine ecosystem. The future of maritime shipping industries is expected to embrace and incorporate technology in its various systems and achieve a smart marine ecosystem where technology controls activities. A smart line marine ecosystem will involve remote control operations where various shipping operations will be controlled by a sequence of Dynamic Positioning and joystick control (Editorial team, 2019). This will enable the industries to efficiently control resources and limit manpower operations, which causes errors. The aftermath will be added value and high optimization for the industry and the customers as technology will fasten and improve various operations.

 Besides adopting smart marine technology, the Maritime Shipping industry is expected to incorporate a partnership scheme into its business model. The industry is expected to establish solid agreements with cruise companies like the Carnival Corporations (Editorial team, 2019). This move is expected to improve the performance of cruise ship safety and better risk management and exposure to outcomes. Further, partnership with Carnival corporations will increase monitoring and enable the Maritime Shipping Industry to focus on its core business operations and improve performance.

The maritime shipping industry is expected to achieve sustainability by protecting the environment and improving people’s lives in the next five years. Firstly, it may develop strategies to reduce its carbon footprint and reduce the amount of fuel consumed by the ships. To achieve low carbon emissions, shipping companies can adopt a slow steaming method where they will operate ships at a minimal speed, improve fuel efficiency, and reduce carbon release into the environment. Additionally, shipping industries can achieve sustainability by using skysails to propel their ships using low or no fuel consumption. Skysails will propel ships using wind power and lower fuel needs and emissions (Konrad, 2009). The use of skysails is effective in achieving sustainability and reducing pollution. Further, sustainability can be achieved by adopting better propulsions methods using swirls rather than propellers. With an efficient propulsion method, ships can easily sail and release less fuel to the environment. Other methods of achieving sustainability are adopting decarbonization, using efficient ship hulls and route optimization.

 Besides achieving sustainability, Maritime companies should incorporate more digital technology methods into their systems. Firstly, a vessel monitoring performance system will enable the marine companies to monitor various ships in their voyages, track them and receive notifications of any malfunctions on the ships. This tech will reduce risks during voyages and increase performance. Further, maritime industries should invest heavily in artificial intelligence to enable digital cargo and bay arrangement optimization. Ships transport billions of dollars’ worth of goods, and some of these goods are highly demanded with fixed timeframes (Menon, 2021). Artificial intelligence will enable the industries to differentiate the cargos with high priority goods and allow them to reach their destinations without delays. Artificial intelligence will streamline the flow of goods and reduce terminal traffics, unlike when manpower efforts are used. Further, maritime companies can adopt the Internet of Things (IoT). With IoT vessels, shipping companies will be able to control ships with mobile phones and consolidated control systems such as remotes without requiring a physical presence (Menon, 2021). For example, cargo-carrying priority goods can be remotely accessed using mobile apps and assess their movements. Thus, digital technologies will enhance efficiency in the maritime industries.

Maritime shipping industries should adopt various recommendations to achieve efficiency in future. Firstly, maritime industries should adopt decarbonization, where the industry will commit resources to allow the stripping away of impurities contained in fuels such as sulphur and ash, which causes an increase in green gas emissions. Additionally, sustainability in the marine industries will be effective if they commit resources towards green ship technology. With green ship technology, the industries will adopt procedures and strategies for decreasing fuel and gas emissions and conserve the environment. North American marine industries have established several green ship programs to reduce environmental footprints (Walker, 2016). This has been a great move to achieve sustainability.

Maritime industries can adopt digital route management of ships in the digital world. Digital route management will enable ship operators to utilize oceanic data and conditions to identify accurate routes that ships can use and take less time to reach their destinations. Digital route management will be instrumental in improving cargo and ships durations. Maritime industries should also invest heavily to adopt and integrate smart technology into their systems. Smart technology will utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to allow ships to manoeuvre around with minimal assistance from captains. This will reduce the occurrence o human errors and enable the generation of real-time route information as data will be generated automatically and supplied to the shareholders.

In conclusion, the need for sustainability and efficiency through digital technology necessitates all industries, with no exceptions, to adopt tremendous changes. Maritime industries have adopted several changes in their business models, such as the smart technology aimed to reduce the human presence and increased partnership with related corporations to increase the expected outcomes. Soon, maritime industries are expected to achieve sustainability and integrate various digital technologies. Changes should target the use of efficient methods of fuel consumption like skysails and better propulsions methods. Maritime industries should also adopt smart technologies such as consolidated control systems and digitalized route management methods. These strategies will increase performance in the maritime industry and allow optimization of resources and operations.

References

Editorial team. (2019). Smart Marine Ecosystem. Safety4Sea. Retrieved 18 April 2022, from https://safety4sea.com/cm-smart-marine-ecosystem/.

Konrad, J. (2009). Skysails – Marine Environmental Initiatives At Work. gCaptain. Retrieved 18 April 2022, from https://gcaptain.com/skysails-marine-environmental/.

Menon, A. (2021). 10 Smart Ship Technologies For The Maritime Industry. Marineinsight.com. Retrieved 18 April 2022, from https://www.marineinsight.com/know-more/10-smart-ship-technologies-that-maritime-industry/.

Walker, T. (2016). Green Marine: An environmental program to establish sustainability in marine transportation. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 105(1), 199-207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2016.02.029