Tired of Talking Green: Ask the Right Questions

“It’s amazing how much money is spent on bringing a ship into operation from a shipyard perspective versus an owner perspective,” says Marcel Veldhuizen, Vice President, Business Development for Intergraph Process Power and Marine, a global provider of engineering and process software. “The shipyard delivers a vessel, but very often a lot more time and money is spent before the operator can actually use it.”

It can easily be one or two percent of the total installed cost, particularly for complex vessels such as floating offshore units. “If you look at some projects where you have 150,000 tag items, about 125,000 documents, where it’s a very small project with about 45 people, in general you see between $18-38 million saved on these projects with better handover.” For something like a floating LNG unit, it could easily be ten times that amount.

Issues of data transfer at handover can occur between engineering company and shipyard, shipyard and owner, and between owner and purchaser of a second-hand vessel. Veldhuizen cites a recent example of an owner who purchased an FPSO second-hand. The paperwork did not match the vessel, and in the end the new owner scanned the whole vessel and started cleaning up the documentation from there. Should something go wrong, the new owner was concerned about insurance and liability. Correct information has value from a maintenance perspective too as these vessels are not expected to return to shipyards for maintenance very often in their lifetime.

Finding and Validating Information

There are studies that show that 40 percent of the time needed before a new owner can put a vessel into operation is spent finding and validating information that should actually just be there, says Veldhuizen. A lot of this is engineering data that forms the basis for the operational side of an asset, for instance, the schematics of process diagrams, line list, equipment lists, etc.

At seminars, Veldhuizen uses the following analogy to illustrate how owners need to think about the problem:

“Can I have a copy of your presentation?”

“Sure, here’s the paper printout.”

“No, I’d like to have it electronically.”

“Sure, here’s the PDF, but please pay me royalty.”

“No, I’d like to use the PowerPoint myself, so can I get it in native format?”

“Sure, but since you asked after I provided you all the data, and this is intellectual property, I need to charge you additionally.”

So, says Veldhuizen, ask the right questions about information transfer and ask them before finalizing contracts: “The results are quite staggering. Most new owners achieve 80-85 percent positive results by asking these questions up front. If they ask them afterwards, the only thing they hear is ‘Oh, it’s very difficult. It’s going to cost you money.’” Make sure you also put the handover requirements for technical data in the contract rather than relying on verbal agreement. “If you don’t, people have a tendency to forget,” says Veldhuizen.

Data handover can occur in intermediate steps so the new owner can start preparing earlier and shorten the time to bring the vessel into operation. For the shipyard, correct data from the design and engineering stages can save material costs and time and improve the quality of service to owners.

Connectivity Issues

With the growing use of smartphones and other mobile devices, everyone wants data, says Veldhuizen, but many also take it for granted and do not think about connectivity across people and organizations. Spreadsheets, an engineering favorite, can easily create time-consuming problems, even with a diligent project team. A slight difference in the use of punctuation marks between different people can create matching problems when data from multiple spreadsheets is amalgamated. It is another data-formatting and control issue that is easily overlooked until it is too late.

Although data management is particularly important for complex vessels such as FPSOs, FLNGs or LNG carriers, the IMO requirement that a ship carry stability calculations on board is another reason for ensuring data handover occurs in an accurate and usable manner. If the correct digital information is received, it can be used directly by stability software on board the vessel. With the future merchant fleet becoming increasingly complex, shipowners should take notice. – MarEx

If you would like to propose viewpoints or topics for future articles, please comment below or contact Wendy Laursen at [email protected].