NAPA to be First Service Provider for Ship Data Center’s Open Platform

NAPA the leading provider of maritime software, services and data analysis, today announced that it has become the first service provider for ClassNK-owned Ship Data Center’s Internet of Ships Open Platform (ShipDC IoS-OP). NAPA will provide ship performance analytics and voyage optimization capabilities for this universal platform developed to share vessel operational data between stakeholders.

The aim of the ShipDC IoS-OP is to create a new, digital maritime cluster by securely minimizing the costs of data ownership and portability for owners and operators, while allowing yards and manufacturers to access the rich data necessary for far-reaching innovation and research.

This goal aligns closely with NAPA’s proven ability to fuse big data and hydrodynamics expertise to create powerful performance optimization tools. Bringing together these two domains means that NAPA can deliver powerful analysis for any shipping stakeholder, regardless of the type of data available – whether as simple as noon reports, or as complex as data drawn from a vessel’s Automatic Identification System (AIS).

Based on principles of co-existence and competition, IoS-OP brings together many different companies throughout the industry, from shipping companies to ship builders and equipment and services suppliers. Service users of the platform will be able to use NAPA’s expertise to analyze vessel and voyage performance with a high level of accuracy, either to reduce emissions and increase profitability or to research and validate new technologies.

Naoki Mizutani, Managing Director, NAPA Japan said: “Collecting data on its own doesn’t add value unless you can turn it into insight. At NAPA, we can build on more than 30 years of naval architectural expertise and combine that knowledge with the latest big data tools to find answers to the questions the industry needs answering. How are we going to dramatically reduce emissions and stay profitable? How can we keep making ships that perform better, and safer?

“To answer these questions collaboration is key. Being able to draw on data from the whole IoS-OP consortium means we can get better results, and maximize the benefit we provide to the whole community.”

Yasuhiro Ikeda, President, Ship Data Center said: “NAPA is renowned in the industry for its expertise in naval architecture, hydrodynamics, and big data. NAPA is well suited to provide performance analytics and voyage optimization services to the IoS-OP community, and we are delighted to welcome them on board as its first service provider. By having a service provider like NAPA join the IoS-OP, it will be possible to visualize the benefits of utilizing big data. This will lead more players to join the initiative and form a strong platform.”

NAPA works with several data platforms in order to maximize the value of its analytics services. In April this year, NAPA became the first certified application provider for Inmarsat’s IoT service, Fleet Data.