The silver lining
The dark cloud of the financial crisis has a silver lining, according to Bo Cerup-Simonsen, Vice President at Maersk Maritime Technology. That silver lining is innovation.
Bo Cerup-Simonsen is responsible for innovation, vessel performance, ship engineering and regulatory affairs in Maersk Maritime Technology, the corporate technology unit supporting the A.P. Moller-Maersk fleet.
“It goes without saying that a financial crisis, with limited capital for investments, affects the whole industry,” says Mr Cerup-Simonsen. “The good side of that story is that resources previously tied up in production are now available for innovation. A lot of companies are looking at an order book that is coming close to an end, and many are seeing innovation as an important means for improving their business. Altogether this means that we are seeing significant innovation among our suppliers. This probably wouldn’t have happened in times of excessive production pressure to the same extent. They would be too busy.”
Innovation is ongoing in all areas of technology: engines, propellers, anti-fouling paint types, pumps, pipes, emission cleaning technologies, new fuel types, battery technologies, energy carriers. “I don’t see an area where we’re not seeing innovation. It’s across the board among almost all technology suppliers. And very much is hooked up either to energy efficiency or emission cleaning at this point.”
Thinking ahead
Maersk is also highly focused on innovation, despite the downturn. “Fortunately, this company has a good deal of resources enabling us to think ahead even in times of a crisis. There has been a shift toward using innovation to help on the cash flow, to generate savings here and now. But we still have a lot of significant innovation projects that are really long-term,” he says.
Mr Cerup-Simonsen, 41, has a PhD in engineering from the Technical University of Denmark. His academic career included studies at the University of Washington, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a period as visiting scholar at University of California at Berkeley. He was with DNV from 2003 to 2008, as Head of Maritime Technical Consultancy in Oslo. But two years ago he returned to his native Denmark to join A.P. Moller-Maersk.
Eco-efficiency
All of the business units in A.P. Moller-Maersk are required by corporate policy to attain a level of environmental performance beyond least possible compliance level, following so-called Eco-Efficiency or Eco-Advantage strategies. Many examples of eco-efficiency innovation were included in the E Series container vessels, built at Maersk’s own Odense Lindoe Steel Shipyard.
“Boundaries were actually pushed with that design. They were pushed in terms of size, energy efficiency, technology complexity and performance, and various operational matters. And most of the innovation is being continued in the new series being built now,” says Mr Cerup-Simonsen. “The change for us is that now we are building new ships at Korean shipyards instead of our own yard. It has been questioned whether we can be innovative with Asian yards. But we believe that with very strong collaboration between us as owner and operator, the Korean yards and not least the main technology suppliers, we can actually help to drive innovation and push the limits for technology and environmental performance.”
Maersk is currently building a series of 16 container vessels at Daewoo and 22 container vessels at Hyundai. “We are optimising the hull shape of the ships based on a completely new principle. Instead of looking at a particular condition and optimising it for that, we’re looking at the whole range of operational conditions. From this we are minimising annual fuel consumption. This sounds trivial, but it’s actually a major conceptual shift from what you’re doing today. And this gives a rather different hull shape. In the series we’re building at Daewoo we’re achieving 8% fuel savings based on this exercise.”
Innovations
Maersk is also fitting a waste heat recovery system in the new ships. About 10% of the energy from the exhaust gas is turned into electricity. “This is rather expensive technology but it’s also obviously saving us a lot of CO2,” says Mr Cerup-Simonsen. “We are also putting very efficient engines on board. They’re slow-running derated engines with more efficient propellers. This is also saving us in the order of 8% altogether.”
Mr Cerup-Simonsen is interested in DNV’s abatement curves. “We know the concept very well,” he says. “What DNV has done on an overall level, dividing the world fleet into 59 segments and trying to get a picture of what’s cost-effective on a global scale is I think exactly what is needed in order to set the target for the regulations at a good level. We are actually developing our own abatement curves internally, basically from ship to ship, as a basis for investments.”
Competition between ships
One of the key strategies for A.P. Moller-Maersk relating to energy efficiency in operations is an effective performance management system. Some 300 ships are constantly monitored, with the data being continuously processed and analysed. Reports are sent back to operational centres and to the ships. “This constant monitoring enables the ships and the on-shore staff to see how they’re doing on a daily basis. It drives a competition between the ships and the fleets. It gives us the possibility to manage energy efficiency in the sense that we can set targets, we can plan, we can monitor, we can see if we meet our targets. This is a very, very strong tool at Maersk. It requires quite a lot of expertise and resources to do this to the extent that we are doing,” he says.
Text: Kaia Means
日付: 11 June 2010