NYK and DNV GL Provide Update on Maritime Data Centre Pilot Project at Nor-Shipping

Hideyuki Ando of MTI/NYK Group, Trond Hodne of DNV GL - Maritime, Svein Steimler of NYK Group Europe. Image: DNV GL

DNV GL Thursday announced that, along with Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK), it presented the results of the companies' ongoing maritime data centre pilot project at the Nor-Shipping event in Oslo this week.

The collaboration between NYK and DNV GL, which is supported by MAN Diesel & Turbo SE (MAN), started in November 2015, and has developed a data centre that collects operational data from NYK vessels on DNV GL's recently launched Veracity industry data platform.

"Information & Communication Technology (ICT) is growing rapidly and transforming traditional industries. In the maritime industry, we are now at the beginning of an era to pursue ICT-enhanced technical innovations where industry partners form organic collaborations," said Tadaaki Naito, President of NYK.

"IoT (Internet of Things) data produced by ships in operation is the key to such collaborations. We, NYK, need a secure, reliable, neutral, and competitive open ICT platform to share and utilise our data with industry partners, and proper business rules for accelerating data-driven innovations."

Run in several phases, the project's first phase seen the development of required components, including data collection and management.

The project's second phase is focused on testing data quality, security, access rights, and curation of data for use in various applications such as predictive maintenance and vessel performance.

The upcoming third phase is set to examine new digital business models.

"The promotion of data sharing brings a new opportunity for talented ICT technicians and data scientists to step into our maritime industry, resulting in a co-evolution of our industry with digital talent that allows us to reach higher," said Naito.

"We share such open platform concept with DNV GL and MAN, and are cooperating in the pilot process of proving the validity of the concept and building a real working platform by sharing NYK ships' operational data with MAN over DNV GL's Veracity industry data platform."