Final Individual Project

Functions of Big Data applied in Logistic Industry on a Global Scale

Tracking in Maritime Shipping

BIG DATA. What it is and why it matters

Big Data Defined
Big data is a popular term used to describe the exponential growth and availability of data both structured and unstructured. It may be important to business as more data may lead to more accurate analyses. The most common definition is the 3Vs of big data: Volume, Velocity, and Variety. These were originally coined by Dough Laney as far back as 2001.

Volume

The size of data sets is ever-growing (for many enterprises it is already in the petabyte range); this poses a technical challenge in terms of storing, finding, and analysing the data.

Velocity

For some problems, like stopping credit card fraud, making the right decision in time is the most important thing. The decision has to be made before the transaction goes through. Tackling such problem in real-time adds additional requirements to the system.

Variety

Data can be of any type. It can be structured or unstructured. It can be text, time series from sensors, click streams and log files from web sites, multimedia, position data from GPS loggers, etc. The challenge is to combine the various data and to set up the system to integrate new data as it becomes available.

Introduction: Big Data x Globalization x Logistic

Big Data is surely one of the influencing current trends in the modern business world. It is about leveraging extensive information assets in order to enhance business process performance. Like Amazon, Google and Facebook, the sustained success of internet giants have proofed that, apart from resources, labor and capital, DATA is the fourth production factor in today’s hyperconnected world, having become a new frontier of competitive differentiation. Disruptive technology approaches propel the performance of data processing to a new order of magnitude. 

The logistics industry is a promising target for applying Big Data techniques as it heavily relies on extensive information flows. A timely and accurate delivery can only be assured if data travels ahead of every single shipment. On a global scale, the tracing of goods from origin to destination in international trading creates an enormous data set that fuels a variety of valuable Big Data use cases. Through the efforts of both governments and commercial companies like Google and exactEarth, the global network of satellites cover all the oceans and the poles. With this emerging technology in maritime shipping, Big Data can monitor conditions remotely and advise ship management on system operation and predictive maintenance, monitor the safety of ships with weather conditions, optimize shipment routes, lower transportation and fuel costs and reduce the risk of late arrivals. Most busy shipping lanes and ports currently have traffic control centres to manage traffic in real-time to avoid collisions and accidents.

Impact of Globalization on Maritime Shipping Industry

The maritime business is strongly affected by globalization. On one hand, as markets became increasingly globalized, shipping volumes soared. From the 1950s to the latest global economic crisis, the growth rate of international trade was almost consistently twice that of economic activity as a whole. Today it is common for raw material like agri-products to be harvested on one continent, shipped to another for intermediate processing, transported to a third continent for final assembly, and then delivered to markets. On the other hand, trade in maritime services is one of the most globalized industries and its components such as vessels, flag registration, class inspections, insurance and the work of seafarers are purchased globally. A simple commercial transaction may easily involve people and property from a dozen different countries: A Greek owned vessel, built in Korea, may be chartered to a American operator, who employs Indonesian seafarers via a Vietnam crewing agent, is registered in UK, insured in the China, and transports German made cargo in the name of a Swiss freight forwarder from a Dutch port to Argentina, through terminals that are concessioned to port operators from Hong Kong and Singapore. 

Tracking in Maritime Shipping Industry
How vessel position be recorded?


It is all about AIS (Automatic Identification System). As from December 2004, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) requires all vessels over 299GT to carry an AIS transponder on board which transmits their position, speed and course, among some other static information such as vessel’s name, dimensions and voyage details. 

AIS is initially intended to help ships avoid collisions, as well as assisting port authorities to better control sea traffic. AIS transponders on board vessels include a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver, which collects position and movement details. It includes also a VHF (Very High Frequency, radio waves that move very quickly and produce good sound quality) transmitter, which transmits periodically this information on two VHF channels and make this data available to the public domain. Other vessels or base stations are able to receive this information, process it using special software and display vessels locations on a chart plotter or on a computer. 

Vessels with an AIS receiver connected to an external antenna placed on 15 meters above sea level will receive AIS information within a range of 15-20 nautical miles. Base stations at a higher elevation, may extend the range up to 40-60 nautical miles, even behind remote mountains, depending on elevation, antenna type, obstacles around antenna and weather conditions. The most important factor for better reception is the elevation of the base station antenna which is the higher the better.

Emerging Innovation Management Practice
Ship tracking is an important service towards the maritime industry including continuous monitoring of emissions from shipping, and real-time monitoring of accident and emergency response risks like oil recovery, tug preparedness, pilot schemes etc. The system will be able to combine real-time information about course, speed, weather etc. with facts concerning the safety condition of the ship, cargo, and other elements that influences the likelihood or consequences of an accidents and determine the shore areas most exposed to the risk.

With AIS system, it could provide below information Globally:

1.  Dynamic Information, such as vessel’s position, speed, current status, course and rate of turn.

2. Static Information, such as vessel’ name, IMO number, MMSI (Maritime Mobile Service Identity) number, dimensions.

3. Voyage-specific Information, such as destination, (ETA) Estimate Time Arrival and draught.

The terrestrial-based AIS network provides coverage of vessel positions in real-time at several thousands of ports and coastal shipping routes worldwide. Satellite AIS data comes as an ideal supplement, allowing operators to monitor vessels tracks well beyond coastal regions, including the oceans. The combination of Satellite and Terrestrial AIS gives a unique presentation of the global maritime traffic and provides a daily update of almost the entire global merchant fleet.

Data received are uploaded in the database in REAL TIME and therefore they are immediately available on the map and on other pages. However, several positions shown on map may be not continuously refreshed (e.g. when a ship goes out of range). Vessel positions shown on map may be up to one hour old.

Moving vessels are displayed as ship icons pointing to the specified direction (heading). Ships that are not moving (or their speed is less than 0.5 knots) anchored or moored are displayed as small squares. Vessel icons and tracks are colored according to their type (cargo, tanker, passenger, etc.) as explained in the page showing the live map.

Practical Examples with Photos: (Click to Zoom-In)

Global traffic overview with satellite AIS: Follow the global marine traffic to the open sea with satellite AIS.

All vessels, all tracks, all voyage details Globally: Inspect marine traffic from a global perspective and zoom into any area to identify every single ship at first sight.

Vessel and voyage details at a click: Assess voyage details including last port, next destination and estimated time of arrival directly in the map. The vessel’s detail page with further ship particulars, logs and statistics is just a click to go.

Offshore Operations: Monitor vessels and operations far away from offshore where normal tracking methods cannot reach. Navigation charts, weather data and display of surrounding marine traffic help improve nautical supervision, weather routing and bunker planning.

Conclusion
Big Data applied in Logistic is not a kind of IT magic but a disruptive way of leveraging information value. It takes operational efficiency and customer experience to the next level. The expansion into information-driven business models that capitalize on unique data assets is also a future option for a logistics provider to consider. To wind up, the digital revolution will make logistics smarter, faster and more efficient.

Reference:

https://www.fleetmon.com/

http://www.sas.com/en_us/insights/big-data/what-is-big-data.html

The Impacts of Globalisation on International MaritimeTransport Activity, Global Forum on Transport and Environment in a Globalising World, 10-12 November 2008, Guadalajara, Mexico

GLOBALISATION: THE MARITIME NEXUS, 2001. Shashi Kumar and Jan Hoffmann

http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/home

Big Data – the new data reality and industry impact. DNV GL Strategic Research & Innovation Position Paper 4-2014.