In the field of vessel performance monitoring each service provider uses their own data collection programme, which is often incompatible with the ship owner’s system. We are developing a standard to avoid this problem.

30 January 2017

Currently the data collected by the ship owners needs to be transformed into compatible data for the service provider to use it. In order to solve this problem, we are developing a common standard for how to encode ship performance monitoring data from different service providers. This will make vessel performance optimisation more efficient for ship owners as well as service providers.

Currently many ship owners purchase software for performance data collection without being able to use the collected data without an analysis. The data is sent to a service provider, who performs the analysis. However, this process is not as smooth as it sounds.

The problem is that the ship owner often uses a different system than the service provider which means that he might have to buy and install the service provider’s system, which will tie him to one supplier. The alternative is that the service supplier offers to analyse the data anyway but charges the ship owner with a fee for reconfiguration of the data. The whole process is demanding and expensive for them both.

The problem is quite substantial as ship owners often buy and sell their ships, which means that they might have different performance analysis monitoring systems on each ship.  

A common standard

A common standard for how to encode data from different service providers would solve the problem and make the situation more efficient for ship owners as well as service providers.


We are currently developing a standard that will do just that. The standard will provide a formula for how to standardize the data, so the service providers are able to open and analyse it. 

“This is a huge benefit to small service providers - they will be able to sell their service to the entire world and not only a few ship owners using the same system. The ship owners will benefit from the standard as well by being able to use their performance monitoring system without being tied to a specific service provider,” explains Søren Hattel, team leader at FORCE Technology.

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