American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) and Kongsberg Digital are pooling their digital resources to upgrade their vessel performance monitoring and analytics services.

The move comes as classification societies seek to enhance their vessel optimisation services ahead of new environmental regulations requiring shipowners to improve efficiency.

The ABS Kongsberg partnership is seeking to gain an edge in the vessel performance market, and help owners and operators reduce fuel consumption, improve environmental performance and charter-party compliance.

The deal involves the marrying Kongsberg Digital's main product Vessel Insight with classification society ABS' My Digital Fleet.

My Digital Fleet is a customisable platform, which integrates ship data to achieve sustainable operations while reducing operational risks.

Vessel Insight is a cloud-based system that captures vessel data through Kongsberg's VPN network solution Konifai Cloud.

The idea is to allow ABS' My Digital Fleet access to data collected through Kongsberg's Vessel Insights to develop analytics services.

ABS executive vice president John McDonald said digital technology can improve safety and operational excellence. Photo: ABS

AI insights

It will allow the vessel and at shoreside management access to AI-powered insights to support of voyage optimisation.

“The potential of digital technologies to advance the cause of safety and operational excellence, not to mention the decarbonisation of our industry, is significant," said ABS executive vice president John McDonald.

Andreas Jagtoyen, executive vice president of Digital Ocean at Kongsberg Digital, said: "By combining ABS’ unique data integration and analytics platform with the Vessel Insight data capturing infrastructure, we are strengthening our position to offer an even better integrated service of high value for the industry."

Classification Societies have been active in boosting their vessel monitoring and performance services ahead of new environmental regulation.

Lloyd's Register recently acquired marine data intelligence company GreenStream. Italy's RINA also acquired software company Logimatic Solutions.