Imagine: a self-navigating ship arrives at the harbour and there is nobody on board when it approaches the quay. On the quay, several field engineers are waiting in their vans, looking at their digital work pads. Some of the field engineers are watching their video instructions in their digital helmets so that they know exactly how to carry out the required predictive maintenance tasks, when the vessel has moored alongside the quay.
Others are busy printing out parts with 3D printers in the back of their vans. They will have only a few hours available before the ship will depart again after it has unloaded hundreds of cargo containers and loaded new ones.
The quick turnaround operation looks like that of a low-cost airline of a few years ago. Once the vessel has docked, the fully automated container terminal starts unloading the cargo containers. The containers are rapidly hoisted and are placed on train carriages that are lined up by destination. Train cargo operations have been replaced by the use of trucks for all long-haul transport over land because of the lower environmental impact and higher speed. The only human involved in the unloading operation is a person that supervises the unloading by video remotely.
In the meantime, at the back side of the ship, a large volume of surplus hydrogen that was generated by the ship during the voyage, is pumped to on-shore storage, where only a few years ago you would find fuel bunkers for polluting heavy diesel fuel needed to power a ship. This ship is a completely zero emission vessel, thanks to a combination of smart energy sources ranging from high tech sails that double the speed of the received wind, wind turbines that generate electricity and hydrogen-powered electric engines that are only used when there is not sufficient wind to power the ship and solar power from solar panels that cover the entire ship.
The onboard information systems receive information 24/7 about the expected hours of sunshine, wind directions and currents, in order to calculate the most optimum route. The ship is safe not to collide with others through the usage of data received about the position of other ships as well as the ships PORT LADAR systems and other sensors that capture situational data. At the same time the ship makes sure that it optimises the use of natural resources like sun and wind to generate its own energy.
Figure 1: An example of service value chain optimisation.
Features future of field service Noventum Service Value Chain
Mark is an experienced B2B editor and journalist having worked across an array of magazines and websites covering health and safety, sustainable energy and airports.
Field Service News is published by 1927 Media Ltd, an independent publisher whose sole focus is on the field service sector. As such our entire resources are focused on helping drive the field service sector forwards and aiming to best serve our industry through honest, incisive and innovative media coverage of the global field service sector.
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