In 2017, we established the Maritime Innovation Lab in partnership with several other leading organisations. The lab is a key strategic tool for Wilhelmsen to drive more innovation with higher speed and quicker return on investment. Through the lab, the group offers start-ups direct access to our global maritime network, industry experts, office facilities, access to capital, and potential partnership or customer. In 2017, three start-ups utilised the lab with their products expected to have direct impact on Wilhelmsen operations:
- Marsec - in the field of industrial IoT products for fleet optimisation
- Maindeck - in digital process optimisation related to dry-docking/technical management
- DoLittle - through an application platform that reduces the total cost of building software and increases the ability to leverage domain knowledge
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Bots
Sachin Gupta
Business manager oil
Ships service, Marine products
Imagine a customer journey that means immediate response to your product queries and constant access to our product catalogues. Imagine having everything you need at your fingertips, while the people behind the products and services you need can focus even more on giving you the best customer experience. At Wilhelmsen, we are developing BOTS to serve your needs, because we are simplifying your business. Sachin is part of the team working on our BOT technology. Interacting with Wilhelmsen is only getting easier.
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Drones
Jessica Chen
Business coordinator
Ships service, Ships agency
If you could reduce cost, reduce safety risk, reduce negative environment impact and increase efficiency, would you be interested? What if you could work dramatically faster, still interested? With drones in a maritime environment, we can give our customers clear benefits on cargo hold inspections, deliveries and more services to come. The best part is that the technology we use is only getting better. Jessica Chen is part of the team working on our drone projects. By adopting a well-known concept of drones, but putting them into a challenging maritime environment, Wilhelmsen is shaping the maritime industry.
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Boiler water
Rune Nygaard
Business manager water
Ships service, Marine products
The boiler is one of a vessel’s key components, but if not properly maintained can become its most volatile piece of equipment. Today, boiler water maintenance is performed onboard by overstretched crews that have more and more tasks to take care of. Our solution combines automatic dosing capability with real time data feedback and analysis both on board and onshore, thereby reducing this burden. Currently installed on eight test vessels, this is just the beginning. As our dosing and monitoring units can include other water streams on the vessel, we can deliver asset protection in multiple places with a standardized solution that is communicated and viewable via a single cloud platform.
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Several internal innovation initiatives were implemented in 2017, some have led to realisation of new products and services, whilst others require a longer maturity term. Whilst the efficiency and operational cost savings are most obvious, the broader sustainability aspects and the elimination of human exposure to hazards that are present in today’s ways of working present a compelling case for implementation.
Drones for example, when used for inspections will eliminate the need to work at heights or in confined spaces for those activities. Drones used for last mile deliveries that are carried out by employees in launch boats today will eliminate the hazard to humans and reduce the environmental impact of emissions to sea and air.
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Augmented reality
Cara Wong
Marketing manager,
Ships service, Marine products
Constantly working to enhance the total offer for our solutions on board the rigs and vessels we serve, Cara is part of the team driving the use of Augmented Reality and interactive 3D experiences. This makes it easier for customers on board and in the offices to quickly understand the application areas, product features and key usage information, increasing effectiveness and efficiency. We see a tremendous training potential here as well. This is just the start as we have an ambition to bring to life more solutions for more vessel types in the near future.
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3D-printing
Nakul Malhotra
Vice president technical solutions and marketing,
Ships service, Marine products
In 2017, ordering a spare part to your vessel could take up to a few weeks to arrive. In 2018, the same spare part could be in your hands in a matter of hours. 3D-printing allows you to basically have access to a micro factory in your next port. By adopting a well-known technology and putting it to the test of serving the maritime industry, Wilhelmsen is enabling its customers to be more efficient. Nakul is part of the team working in our 3D-printing initiative. The old slogan of Wilhelmsen was “Speed and Service”, we might bring that back in play.
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Smart ropes
Veronika Aspelund
Product marketing manager,
Ships service, Marine products
Ropes as a concept is older than the wheel, it’s even older than beer. Still, over nearly 30 000 years, never have anyone attempted to smarten up the ropes. Until now. What if your mooring ropes could communicate with you, what if you knew how your ropes felt? Instead of banging on your ropes with a hammer, with the inaccuracy and not to mention risk that includes, the ropes would talk to a software system and let you know exactly their current state. Veronika is part of the team creating smart ropes at Wilhelmsen. After thousands of years, it is fair to say that we are shaping the maritime industry and even the concept of ropes.
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A new cleaning package developed in 2017 will eliminate the need to work at heights and reduce the consumption of cleaning chemicals for cargo hold cleaning. The newly launched Unitor™ HPCE Anaconda Lance Kit enables the crew to clean persistent cargo stains in elevated areas. With CEFAS/HOCNF certifications on our products, it means that the chemicals used in cleaning are environmentally friendly and can be discharged to the sea without being a hazard to the environment.
3D spare part printing is currently being tested at our ships service facility in Singapore. With 3D printing as a commercial service, the environmental impact of a spare part printed locally in port and possibly delivered by drone to a vessel, is expected to be dramatically less than a spare part transported across to world from its original factory assembly point and back to the same vessel in port.
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Sustainability
Melanie Moore
Head of sustainability,
Wilh. Wilhelmsen Holding,
HR and Communications
The conditions for systematically addressing sustainability challenges are better now than before, where concepts can more rapidly become realities that make a real difference for bottom lines and society. That’s a pretty exciting development and means we get to look at our value chain and impacts of our operations with a fresh set of eyes. Melanie is part of our sustainability team, overseeing our sustainability direction in the group and challenging our own ways to always improve. As an enabler of sustainable global trade, we have a responsibility and we stand by it.
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Autonomous ships
Haakon Lenz
Regional vice president,
Americas and Europe
Ship management,
Management team
What if we could remove trucks and big vehicles from the roads, what if we could lessen the strain on society by making roads safer, cleaner, and decrease wear and tear? By reducing costs dramatically for anyone wishing to transport their goods via shortsea logistics, we might have something interesting to offer. Vessels running on cleaner energy and being fully autonomous will create a perfect way to utilize waterways around the globe. Instead of having thousands of trucks driving around the bay, have a low emission autonomous vessel carry your goods straight across. It saves you time, money, risk, and the society at large will benefitsimultaneously. Håkon works on the team creating the first ever company, building and operating fully autonomous vessels. Wilhelmsen is enabling sustainable global trade, even shaping the future of logistics by the sound of it.
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Learning
Emilie Maria Waagsaether
Learning manager,
Wilh. Wilhelmsen Holding,
HR and communications
It is a cliché to say it, but people are your important asset. Nevertheless, that is no joke – it is what you do with your people that really defines if you take care of them. At Wilhelmsen we train our people to lift Wilhelmsen into the next generation of maritime companies, it is that simple. To shape new mindsets and make sure we are fit for fight, teaching our people how to work at their very best and think bigger than the task at hand becomes our number one priority. We retain and attract people that are in it to make a difference. Emilie is part of our learning team, making sure that everyone from our highly valued trainees to the group CEO are fully equipped to shape the maritime industry.
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