Smart Fleet: Russian Developers Take Vessel Maintenance Digital
Russian company launches pilot digital ecosystem aboard a vessel to manage equipment, spare parts and service requests. The next step is to teach the system to detect faults in advance and connect it to Russian satellite communications networks.
A modern ship is a complex system made up of numerous mechanisms, sensors and electronic devices used for navigation and a range of other functions. Yet even with advanced equipment on board, fleet maintenance remains largely traditional, involving multiple approvals, manual work and lengthy bureaucratic processes.
Russian company Kanonera Ship-Service has set out to move this process into a digital environment and has developed its own pilot ecosystem. Together with its partner Soyuz-S, the company installed a set of Kanonera.Statika (Kanonera Static) equipment on board a vessel.
Always Connected
The project brings together several areas of functionality. The first is telemetry for shipboard machinery. Monitoring modules for the diesel generator and shaft generator were installed on the vessel to collect equipment-performance data and transmit it to a shore-based server.
The system uses both GSM and satellite communications. If the vessel reaches an area where neither option is available, data is transmitted over a radio link at 868 MHz. This means information is not lost when communications are temporarily unavailable. While the vessel is outside coverage, operating parameters are being recorded on the local network. As soon as a communications channel becomes available, the information is automatically sent to the server.
For maritime transport, this is particularly important. A vessel can spend months at sea, change routes and pass through areas with unstable communications. A digital system, meanwhile, cannot depend on whether an internet connection happens to be available.
The pilot has been running for more than two months. During the first month, the system collected about two gigabytes of data covering 120 different parameters. Developers are now working on traffic compression to reduce shipowners’ costs for transmitting the data.
From Sensor to Spare Part
But telemetry is only the first part of the project. The second focuses on an area where digitalization could have an especially noticeable effect: vessel supply and procurement. Today, obtaining a spare part can require crew members to manually fill out an Excel request form, send it to the captain and then to the shore office, after which a long chain of approvals and correspondence with suppliers begins. In some cases, obtaining a single part can take weeks.
Kanonera’s system removes unnecessary manual work from this process. The crew submits a request, which is automatically routed for approval to the chief engineer, captain and superintendent before reaching the hub. The hub checks whether the required parts are in stock. If an item is unavailable, the system automatically contacts Russian suppliers.
Speed, Trust and Benefits
Vessel repair and shipbuilding still rely heavily on phone calls, emails and multistage approval processes. This significantly slows the industry down. The faster routine operations move online, the faster the market can turn over, while costs can fall at the same time. Ultimately, shipowners and the businesses that rely on their services stand to benefit. There will be fewer periods of downtime, fewer losses and more predictable delivery times.
The developers plan to expand the telemetry capabilities so that the system can do more than record a breakdown and instead warn about it in advance. The longer the system monitors machinery, the more accurately it can determine when preventive maintenance is due.
For the Russian market, this means less downtime, fewer unplanned expenses and a faster, more predictable vessel-supply process overall.
The project also has export potential. Global shipping is now moving toward the concept of the “smart ship.” Russian developers have technologies to offer in this area, including telemetry, monitoring systems, digital catalogs, automated procurement and software platforms for vessel operations.
