MiB is a product/service that builds in diagnostic support for multiple assets via Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.
MiB incorporates the diagnostic knowledge of expert diagnosticians in the conventions of mature condition monitoring techniques and aligns this with AI functionality to identify true outliers and then offer meaningful diagnostic advice.
As more assets are managed remotely and fewer onboard personnel are sufficiently experienced to deal with all scenarios, it is becoming clear that a marriage of technology and experience is needed to balance the equation.
Background
The average annual lifecycle cost of operating a ship is approximately £60m, of which approximately 1/3 (£20m) is spent on maintenance and repair. Therefore, there is always a strong incentive to reduce maintenance costs, however, to do so in a heavily regulated setting such as the marine sector, can lead to risks of under-maintaining or maintaining ineffectively.
Through-life cost management must be approached from the perspective of exceeding the demands of the four primary areas, which are Safety, Regulatory, Environmental, and of course Business drivers.
Optimisation can be achieved by improving operational efficiency and, over time, this can lead to cost savings and higher ROI. However, studies have shown that a great deal of effort is wasted on unnecessary maintenance activities, many of which are legacy activities that have not been updated.
These have revealed that in the region of 60% of all maintenance is unnecessary, adds no meaningful benefit and in some cases causes more problems than it intended to solve. Add to this the well-documented fact that only 20% of equipment failures are age-related, this means that only 20% of all time-based maintenance activities are useful.
That said, we have to be proactive, and we cannot do this without performing root and branch RCM assessment of all our assets, which is what the aircraft industry has perfected, but which would be highly impracticable for the marine sector currently, with its multi- variate fleet and comparably complex supply chain structure. Therefore the planned preventative route has worked well but now it needs to be improved if we are to remain competitive.
As 80% of unplanned maintenance issues are NOT time-related, but happen at a random frequency, regardless of inspection and service, there is a requirement for an intelligent, continuous, accurate and automated condition monitoring and maintenance platform to be deployed.
MIB is our offer in this regard!
Objectives
Using our asset condition assessment software MIB, we will create an integrated software platform for undertaking prescriptive maintenance on your ship’s machinery, structures, and auxiliary systems. This will be achieved by using data from existing condition monitoring, diagnostic sensors and systems, the implementation of advanced predictive analytics and the integration of a maintenance actions/prescription database.
Based upon advanced, artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning algorithms MIB will prescribe, the most appropriate maintenance strategy in real-time for every asset under its control, based on the subtle but pre-alarm indications of emerging faults that will occur at a future time.
Specific objectives of MIB are to:
- Establish the monitoring and maintenance needs of each vessel
- Specify the software platform parameters based on each vessel’s requirements
- Deploy our intelligent monitoring software module
- Integrate the module into the MIB platform and provide routine updates to the crew
Benefits
MIB provides an additional level of assurance using real-time prescriptive maintenance outputs which are based on condition monitoring and systems performance data.
Optimised operational performance (Safety, Regulatory, Environmental and Business), and failure prevention, via guided maintenance planning.
A reduction in a requirement for inspection and maintenance, where cost reductions lead to savings of in excess of £500k per ship, per year, for operators and owners
Immediate fault monitoring and prescription of best maintenance strategy without manual diagnostics and data interpretation
Enhanced maintenance accuracy and a reduction in the annual downtime of ships from 7 to 1.5 days
Support for operators, owners, managers, and maintenance providers in fulfilling their regulatory and legal obligations for the safe operation and maintenance of seagoing vessels.
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