Large Shipping Companies Can't Afford Not to Use Big Data for Operational Efficiency, Says Bahri Advisor

by Ship & Bunker News Team
Wednesday October 5, 2016

Anwar Siddiqui, Advisor to the CEO of the National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (Bahri), says large shipping companies cannot afford to not utilise big data to glean improved operational efficiency, among other benefits, and can expect to gain a 5-10 percent boost in overall performance, World Maritime News reports.

"If you look at companies of our size, and other larger shipping conglomerates that produce a lot of data, I do not think any industry or any company of such a size can avoid looking at their data to achieve better operating efficiencies," said Siddiqui.

The maritime is industry said to be generating an estimated 100 to 120 million data points per day, which Siddiqui notes contains commercial and operational intelligence, actionable insights, and opportunities for ship owners and managers to achieve optimal operational efficiency and enhanced shareholder value.

However, Siddiqui says that the potential of Big Data remains largely untapped within the shipping industry, as do a large number of associated opportunities for innovation, improved usage, optimised performance, and better leverage of assets.

Siddiqui explains that the industry is currently at an early adopters stage, with only a handful of companies - mostly large ones - utilising Big Data.

In order to progress past this phase, Siddiqui says the industry "needs to have a broader ecosystem which includes not just the shipping companies, but also the equipment providers, service providers, the ports, the suppliers, the customers, the customs etc."

For its part, Bahri is said to be developing Big Data models and capabilities in order to save money, improve customer efficiency, enhance chartering, increase revenue, and improve asset life and efficiency.

Last December, classification society Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK) announced the opening of the Ship Data Center Co., Ltd. (Ship Data Center) in Tokyo, Japan, intended to support the maritime industry's utilisation of data gathered from ship operations.