Predictive Maintenance for Marine Vessels

In the maritime industry planning and performing regular maintenance is better than using broken equipment at all. But will we have to rely only on the system of scheduled or periodic maintenance that the entire fraternity usually adheres to?
In the maritime industry planning and performing, regular maintenance is better than using broken equipment on the ship. But will we have to rely only on the system of scheduled or periodic maintenance that the entire industry usually adheres to? How to achieve effective vessel performance monitoring by using modern and advanced technologies to monitor and predict equipment maintenance.

Equipment and machinery, especially sea-based ones, are most often subject to failures, defects and unnecessary repairs. Maintaining them is hard work, especially repairing broken ones.

Thinking proactively, what it would look like if we tried to eliminate unplanned failures and ultimately inflated repair costs with early detection of equipment failures while the equipment is still functioning properly. The question is whether the industry will follow a relatively less understood methodology called "predictive maintenance" for all critical equipment and machinery in the ship that is operating.

Let's take a look at the different types of maintenance programs used on ships or on-shore, which differ significantly from condition-based monitoring.

  • Periodic or Scheduled Maintenance System: This time-based monitoring system is commonly used on board ships and includes periodic inspections, overhauls and component replacement of a specific machine. It is expensive and requires significant human resources.

  • Preventive Maintenance: Preventive maintenance includes regular inspection, cleaning, lubrication, reassembly according to the equipment maintenance schedule, and conditional analysis to keep equipment in good working order and prevent further damage.

  • Emergency Maintenance: Whenever a ship's equipment breaks down or fails, subsequent repair is known as emergency maintenance. Generally, rescue services are avoided at sea due to limited resources, unless the equipment is critical and in use.

Prediction Model for Maintenance in shipping

Maintenance prediction is a proactive approach to dealing with unplanned downtime due to equipment failure that ultimately resulted in costly offshore downtime. This approach is more of an abstract forecast than the preventive maintenance system that is strictly adhered to on board ships. The primary aspect of such a service is proactive analysis, which identifies and establishes subsequent trends in shipboard equipment or machinery conditions, thereby alerting us to impending failure. This ensures that the ship's personnel understand the current and future functionality of the equipment.

In short, it is a method that helps us decide or predict the next maintenance cycle for machines or equipment in service. It is also by far the most economical approach when compared to preventive or temporary maintenance methods.

This method detects any deterioration or its onset in equipment that is associated with on-board service, helping less resourceful ship personnel to be able to resolve any maintenance issues in advance.

The main benefit of preventive maintenance on ships is the ability to schedule corrective maintenance before ships enter open water, where repairs are more difficult and expensive. Because technology is like surveillance systems that warn of impending failures, it helps workers predict the service cycle of equipment or machinery. Additional benefits include:
  • Know in advance which parts to store
  • Reduced overhead
  • Energy saving
  • Overall efficiency gains
  • Reduced maintenance and repair costs
  • Increased productivity
  • Less component failures
Marine Digital offers a solution to this problem using different sensors installed on board of a ship and hardware solution for gathering different telemetry data from different types of vessels' equipment. A large amount of data is transmitted using various communication methods in the maritime industry (for example, satellite internet or 4G) and processed using machine learning algorithms. Then managers of shipping companies can set up a predictive system that will inform ship masters, fleet managers and engineers when different parts of the equipment should be changed for a new one. It can be either a stand-alone solution for a vessel or as a part of a vessel performance monitoring system.
Prediction Model for Maintenance in shipping
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Аdvantage of Fuel Optimization System from Marine Digital:
Marine Digital FOS can be integrated with other system and third-party's solutions through the API. To implement vessel performance monitoring for any vessel, we are using mathematical algorithms, machine learning and the same equipment as in FOS. The more data we collect from vessels, the more precise reports and recommendations our system will perform according to your individual requirements in fleet management.

If you have any questions about the solutions and the Marine Digital System platform, write to us, we will be happy to answer
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