Improving operational efficiency of workboats using business process management strategies and vessel data

Master thesis (2022)

Authors

N. van der Linden Mechanical Engineering

Contributors

J.F.J. Pruyn Ship Design, Production and Operations - Mechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineering (mentor)
Florus Wilming (graduation committee member)
Faculty
Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering
Copyright: © 2022 Nordin van der Linden
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Published Date

11-11-2022

Language

English

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Faculty

Mechanical Engineering

Abstract

Organisations worldwide are decreasing their Greenhouse Gas emissions. The maritime industry is also contributing to this and trying to reduce its emissions but has done this inadequately. Reasons for this are that the required decrease in emissions varies widely between different vessels, many workboats are currently avoiding emissions regulations, and research is lagging in this area. On the other hand, many new datasets are becoming available. This research aims to show how companies can use operational data to increase the operational efficiency of workboats and decrease emissions.
The main question of this research is, how can operational data be used to improve the operational efficiency of workboat operations? This question is answered using the data Onboard collects and will use Business process management (BPM) tools to analyse the data. Few papers write about BPM in the maritime industry, and even less about workboats and BPM. The novelty of this study relies on the operational data-based approach, using BPM to increase the operational efficiency of workboats.
The newly collected data collected by Onboard is from workboats. The collected data includes location, time, distance, speed, and fuel consumption. The collected data is time series data. When the crew selects an activity, the time series data until the next activity starts as part of that activity, and all activities are grouped into voyages. To the voyages and activities, the crew can add logbook data.
BPM strategies are reviewed to find a way to use the operational data and optimise the workboats’ operations. The BPM strategies are compared on the use of data, how it matches with the operational workboat data, how the focus of the BPM strategies aligns with the research, and what literature states about the methods in comparable situations. The best fitting strategy to optimise a workboat operation turned out to be Lean Six Sigma (LSS). LSS can contain many tools and has a DMAIC structure: Define, Measure, Analyse, Improve, and Control..