The world’s largest Roll-on/Roll-off ship is already running with IT system developed in Lithuania

The Lithuanian company UAB Baltic Amadeus continues to successfully collaborate with the Swedish company Shippersys AB which is owned by 3 Nordic companies with global operations:

• Storm Geo AS – A Norway-based advanced provider of weather-based decision support systems
• Wilh. Wilhelmsen ASA – A large Norwegian shipping company established more than 150 years ago, and
• Wallenius Marine – A well-known Swedish shipping company

Baltic Amadeus has jointly with Shippersys AB, and experts from the owner companies, developed a unique and unprecedented information system for monitoring and analysing the operations of vessels. It has been installed in the world’s largest Ro-Ro type vessel “MV Tønsberg” (265 m long and 32.26 m wide).

The customer was looking for a unified solution that would process the data transferred from sea to land, would consolidate it and would submit modern reports allowing to monitor, analyse and improve operational processes. Also the solution had to function in conditions of weak internet connection. Therefore, the stability, reliability and security of the system were crucial.

Baltic Amadeus jointly with Shippersys AB worked out a solution based on Microsoft .NET, consisting of 3 modules: ship, shore, and data transmission. After collecting all the necessary information about the vessel (position, speed, fuel type and consumption, and other parameters), this information is supplemented with meteorological data so that performance data that is much affected by extreme weather and sea conditions can be filtered out of the various analysis performed. This system help optimize the operations of vessels by shortening their sea voyages and time in port, as well as reducing their fuel consumption. It has been estimated that a 5% reduction in fuel consumption is realistic, which not only brings significant financial benefits (after all, the typical Ro-Ro ship’s daily fuel- and lubrication oil consumption could be as high as 50 thousand dollars), but also allows to reduce their environmental footprint. This is a significant IT contribution towards protecting our green planet and towards a more environmentally friendly shipping.

Company CEO Andžej Šuškevič was very glad with the first successful implementation of the system on board “MV Tønsberg” and has listed its advantages: ‘At the end of August a pilot installation on a ship simulator was successfully completed in Stockholm. Today we can be proud of an installation on a real ship, which proved that our developed system is working well. This tool facilitates the work of the crew and allows the shore authorities to keep track of each vessel and to quickly increase the efficiency of its use in real-time, as well as compare vessels of relatively similar structures and ensure optimal operation.‘

The company enlisted the aid of Vilnius University researchers. VU mathematicians tuned the provided unique ship ballast optimization algorithm, which was created in a mathematical modelling system Matlab environment. This algorithm, while taking into account the weather and water conditions and the cargo parameters, manages the filling of a ship’s ballast tanks. This helps to maintain the optimal trim of the vessel in water and to improve the fuel consumption of the ship. The algorithm has been transferred from the Matlab environment into a safe ‘closed’ source library. The solution has already been passed on to a manufacturer of specialized computers in order to include it in the operating system management suite. This illustrates how fruitful the cooperation between business and academic backgrounds can be.

The joy of the successful implementation was also shown by the CEO of Shippersys AB Vidar Hole: ‘We are very pleased with the results achieved by UAB Baltic Amadeus, who are our remote IT service development centre for over 9 months already. Their expertise and experience have helped us to quickly and successfully implement this solution that is unprecedented in shipping industry. The experience of collaborating with the Vilnius University scientists was very new and very exciting to us. In this area we see great promise for the future. Further plans for the project are large – over the next 2-3 years we are planning to install the system on a large number of vessels, expanding its functionality and capabilities so as to foster the mutual long-term partnership.’