“Shipping has been conservative for far too long,” he said. “It is time for us to welcome change and emerge from the shadows. Technology unlocks potential, but the digital world and digital shipping must be embraced.”
Capt Unni is also CEO of Alpha Ori Technologies (AOT), which was established in 2017 to help the maritime sector address many of these challenges. Critical to AOT’s portfolio is SMARTShip, an Internet of Things (IoT) platform that enables the on board operation of multiple systems with varying degrees of autonomy.
“AOT has already rolled out 30 SMARTShips and has another 60 in the pipeline at various stages of the set-up process,” said Capt Unni.
“Technology is already redefining our industry,” he added. “IoT, Machine Learning and Cloud-based Big Data science are revolutionising shipping and shipmanagement processes. They can yield efficiency and transparency for owners, ship suppliers and operators.
“Shipboard and shoreside operations can be made more efficient and cost-effective by bringing in customised technology to cater to the specific needs of our industry.
“But digitalisation is a constantly changing landscape. To be effective and future-proofed, shipping companies need to understand the demands of the modern, digital world and the absolutely transformative nature of technology.
“SMARTShip uses cutting edge technologies to solve real-world issues for every stakeholder in the logistics value chain - shipowners, shipmanagers, ship operators, port management, surveyors, ship registries, P&I Clubs, shipbuilders and others.
“We view the ship as a digital enterprise. To fully yield the benefits and transparency these technologies offer, we view our mission as to digitally connect the entire ecosystem within the ship. We can plug this ship into a digital cloud that connects to many other ships, and create the system, tools and business processes that are needed to activate remote monitoring and control of these digitally connected ships, while using collected data as a strategic weapon to drive economic value.
“This produces clear, tangible financial and environmental gains in the shape of fuel and predictive maintenance savings, and enhanced asset utilisation. There is a real return on the investment,” he explained.
AOT has also recently established an AOT ‘Center of Innovation’ in Singapore which operates a Network Operating Centre to remotely monitor and control digitally-enabled ships and is now working on a range of additional products, which will be rolled out as the year progresses.