Looking back at the last couple of years, we can see an interesting trend in digitalization. From being a ‘buzzword’, digitalization became something that almost every industry understood they had to embrace to keep running and keep up to speed. And then, with cloud technology, everything changed again. Today, cloud technology is at the heart of almost every business.
In Kongsberg Digital, we use this to help business scale, as our products re-imagines – literally – how people work by creating smart and dynamic work surfaces that utilizes data from assets, creating a bridge between real time and synthetic data.
A report published during World Economic Forum in May stated that digital solutions can reduce global emissions by up to 20 percent. Looking at what possibilities lie in this, Kongsberg Digital is set to help reach this goal – already delivering products that are making a great impact for our clients by transforming data into insights, actions, and automation.
The shipping industry needs to reduce emissions on a large scale to meet the International Maritime Organization (IMO) target to cut emissions by 50 percent by 2050, as well as meet closer benchmarks such as the new EEXI standards to reduce emissions from the existing fleet – coming in January next year. The Norwegian government stated in March that Norway will continue to play a leadership role in developing technologies for a greener maritime industry.
Vessel Insight must be one of the best examples of such technologies. Talking about scaling; earlier this year, MSC, the world biggest container line, choose Kongsberg Digital to digitalize their entire owned fleet with Vessel Insight.
As the energy sector is going through a transformation to run its operations more efficiently to reduce its carbon emissions, our digital twin Kognitwin® is now operating numerous assets in the energy sector where its re-imagines how people work through visualization, simulations, and physics-based models. And yes, it’s just as cool as it sounds.
To say at least, the first half of 2022 was eventful. So, let’s do a recap of what happened in the first six months – which was a lot!
Vessel Insight is Kongsberg Digital’s “vessel to cloud” solution. With Vessel Insight, shipowners and operators can unlock the value of data generated by their vessels and fleets through fleet overview, vessel-specific dashboards, and analysis tools. The SaaS-based solution provides vessel-to-cloud data infrastructure, capturing and aggregating quality data in a cost-effective and secure way.
During the first six months of 2022, we have welcomed many new customers and partners to Vessel Insight.
In late February we announced that Asiatic Lloyd Martime signed a contract to digitalize four new container vessels. Some months later, in May, we could announce the signing a fleet of 100 vessels with a large industrial shipowner in the tanker segment. Andreas Jagtøyen, SVP Digital Ocean in Kongsberg Digital, expressed that the signing of this contract marked a shift in the industry.
In June we could proudly present our biggest Vessel Insight contract so far, as MSC, the world’s largest container line, chose Kongsberg Digital to digitalize their entire owned fleet consisting of approximately 500 vessels, including options.
In June we could proudly present our biggest Vessel Insight contract so far, as MSC, the world’s largest container line, chose Kongsberg Digital to digitalize their entire owned fleet consisting of approximately 500 vessels, including options.
Right before summer, Floatel International signed Vessel Insight for all their operational rigs. Their fleet consists of five semi-submersible accommodation and construction support vessels, and with Vessel Insight, the company is systematically working to reduce its emissions and optimize its operations.
The Kognifai Marketplace, our ecosystem of applications available for our Vessel Insight customers, continued to expand with partners and quality applications – all of them designed to meet operational needs and requirements. At the beginning of the year, IKM Instrutek and Lab021 joined forces with us to connect their services to Vessel Insight and Kognifai Marketplace.
As a result of the high activity level towards Nor-Shipping in April, Kongsberg Digital partnered with Optimarin, Metis Cyberspace Technology, ChordX, Anda-Olsen and Awake.AI to further expand the Kognifai Marketplace with apps for greener, safer, and more efficient operations.
Today, the Kognifai Marketplace ecosystem consists of over 40 partners.
We always look for ways to meet customers’ needs. During Nor-Shipping we launched Vessel Insight Access, a software solution provided by our Danish acquired company COACH Solutions. A solid offering that embraces digitization and ensures that customers can enjoy the benefits of Vessel Insight without needing additional hardware onboard.
In April, Kongsberg Digital was the very first vendor of vessel-to-cloud technology to receive the D-INF approval from DNV. This is an important milestone for Kongsberg Digital and acknowledgement of our intensive work and investments in cyber security and class validation audit and verification.
Taking the partnership even further, the partners decided to deepen the cooperation by signing a memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in June. The MOU aims to enhance DNV’s D-Inf rules and support greater uptake by the industry.
K-Sim is our extensive and unique maritime simulation digital platform offering a variety of simulation training packages for the education of students and crew.
In the last six months, Kongsberg Digital has entered several valuable partnerships. In March, Kongsberg Digital and the University of Plymouth partnered to provide offshore wind project teams and crews with facilities to verify, test and optimize the installation and maintenance of floating offshore wind turbines, a potentially game-changing project in a rapidly growing market.
In June, the Maritime Academy of Asia and the Pacific (MAAP), an already valued partner to Kongsberg Digital, signed a significant simulation contract to deliver a range of maritime simulators to a new and extensive Innovation Lab in the Philippines.
K-Sim Connect received the prestigious DOGA Award for Design and Architecture this spring. Kongsberg Digital and EGGS Design were given an award for demonstrating outstanding use of design and architecture.
In Kongsberg Digital we love utilizing real-time data. The SiteCom® ecosystem is our industrial work surface for well operations that offers real-time data aggregation and visualization solution for all phases of well construction and operation. With SiteCom, engineers and geologists can make decisions that mitigate operational risk, improve performance, and optimize drilling and well construction.
Well, well.
In May we launched our brand new SiteCom Go mobile app – an application that enable users to access real time drilling and well information at any time. It utilizes the power of SiteCom® Global Mnemonics to automatically integrate and show data from all vendors and latest information can be displayed for immediate overview of current situation. Users now have easy access to a complete list of wells and may receive active notifications of new developments in the wells.
Kognitwin is Kongsberg Digital’s digital twin Software-as-a-Service platform. It enables operators to integrate and contextualize data from their IT and OT systems and enable advanced process and flow simulation to drive higher degrees of asset performance and collaboration.
The year started with Kongsberg Digital joining The Centre for Environment-friendly Energy Research (FME) on Wind Energy, called NorthWind. The aim is to contribute to the development of a Digital Twin Technology for offshore wind infrastructure.
In April we could proudly announce that after a successful delivery of Kognitwin® on two assets, one of the world’s largest energy corporations expanded their contract with Kongsberg Digital, adding four more assets. Shane McArdle, SVP Digital Energy in Kongsberg Digital, said that he sees a shift within the energy industry regarding digitalization, the use of data and digital twins.
For Kognitwin Grid, our digital twin for the energy grid sector, we teamed up with OSO Hotwater and Saint John Energy to collaborate on a joint research project to reduce energy peak load and consequently reduce GHG emissions by using Kongsberg Digital’s Digital Twin software Kognitwin grid.
The energy grid sector is vigilant in developing a common CIM profile called “Felles Grunnprofil”. A standard will be crucial to maintain efficient operations between actors in the sector. In May, Kongsberg Digital was part of a major breakthrough in solving this issue by effortlessly importing a grid model into Kognitwin.
Kongsberg Digital is also an important contributor to the new Shell Research and Technology Centre in Amsterdam, demonstrating the key role we play in developing products and solutions for a greener tomorrow, in this case working with one of the largest energy companies in the world.
LedaFlow is Kongsberg Digital’s software-based solution that ensures optimized field design and operation with a low environmental footprint. It allows continuous flow of oil and gas from the reservoir to the processing facilities via pipelines – in a safe, economical, and environmentally friendly way. Now we will expand LedaFlow into simulation of transportation and injection of CO2 for Carbone Capture and Storage (CCS) as well. In March Kongsberg Digital, together with the computer Modelling Group (CMG), received public funding from the CLIMIT-Demo Program.
This will contribute to enhance LedaFlow into a CCS simulation tool that allows oil companies achieving their NET-ZERO ambitions. Our plan is to further develop, LedaFlow, a leading simulation software for CO2. One of the objectives of the demo is to expand capabilities for injection of CO2 into depleted oil and gas reservoirs and saline aquifers. We are grateful to receive this public grant from the CLIMIT Program and it will help us realizing our visions to help to decarbonize the oil and gas industry which is a vision we share for all users of LedaFlow.
In May we celebrated twenty years with LedaFlow in a webinar with our partners and customers. We shared our visions for the future and our technical and research-oriented prioritizations. Our ambitions are to contribute to the NetZero society by providing excellent simulation capabilities for multiphase transportation of oil, gas and now CO2. Flow Assurance is critically needed in the energy transition and LedaFlow will continue to be developed to ensure our customers have a great tool to support their journey to NetZero operations in the years to come.
An important strategic business move was acquiring Interconsult Bulgaria Ltd (ICB), a software developer and supplier of process modelling, software architecture design, quality assurance and 3D modelling and design. This way, we secured stable development resources for our three divisions, Digital Energy, Digital Wells, and Digital Ocean.
In 2022 we have been on growing both in terms of business, activity, and people. Recently, we opened our new, fantastic expansion of the Capability Center in Bangalore, India. We also had several colleagues that joined us from Kongsberg Maritime in our Digital Ocean team, expanding our expertise and product portfolio.
With the second half of 2022 coming in hot, I do know two things: Christmas is coming way too fast, and digitalization will play an increasingly important role in reducing carbon emissions, making operations more efficient and sustainable.
At Kongsberg Digital we extremely proud of what we have accomplished so far, and we can’t wait for what to come. Make sure to follow us on LinkedIn for news, updates, blogs and more as we continue to digitalize the worlds industries through game changing technology – for a better tomorrow.
