Ship performance monitoring and analysis to improve fuel efficiency

A pilot project was launched to monitor vessel performance and to explore ways to reduce fuel consumption. A prototype Vessel Performance Monitoring and Analysis System (VPMAS) was used to collect information over a three week period. The project objective was to collect needed data, conduct preliminary analysis to establish trends, explore key performance indicators (KPI) to establish baseline, and explore data products for performance management. Performance management includes improving vessel performance and supporting efficient operation to reduce fuel consumption. For the pilot project, only a subset of vessel performance data was collected. Current key performance indicators (KPIs) include fuel consumption per trip, fuel consumption per distance travelled, fuel consumption per displacement distance and fuel consumption per payload distance. The dataset will expand in the future and will include the effect of environmental conditions. Preliminary analysis includes comparing the normal route for calm sea states and irregular routes taken probably to avoid heavy sea states; assessing the maneuvers in and out of harbors, computing key performance indicators, assessing the data trends and general statistics, and identifying data products to support performance management. Initial results show that automatic fuel measurement was in good agreement with manual tank sounding. A voyage on an irregular route consumed almost twice the amount of fuel consumed in a normal route. Fuel consumption would be reduced if constant speed is used in open water and if deviations from the desired routes could be minimized, for example, through optimized autopilot.