Thorco Invests in Navis

Copenhagen-based Thorco Projects has selected Navis’ Bluetracker solution to monitor and analyse the fuel consumption and vessel performance of its own and chartered vessels. Navis is a provider of maritime software solutions for efficient and compliant cargo and vessel performance.

Bluetracker One’s Charter Monitor module will enable Thorco to monitor the operational speed versus fuel oil consumption in compliance with the agreed terms of the charter party.

The specialist in global project shipping operates one of the world’s largest multi-purpose fleets, featuring vessels with lifting capacity to handle unusually large and heavy cargo as well as excellent speed capabilities, said a press release from  Navis, a part of Cargotec Corporation.

Thorco Projects’ commitment to carrying a broad portfolio of break bulk and heavy cargo anywhere in the world at any time requires reliable performance and a high level of flexibility in this spot-market business. Therefore, Thorco Projects sought assistance in efficiently overviewing their own and chartered vessels that need to respond to the requirements of a highly volatile market.

With the help of the Charter Monitor module of Bluetracker One, Thorco Projects will achieve greater visibility of charter-party compliance by monitoring the operational speed versus fuel oil consumption as agreed upon with the charter party.  The scope of the current initial agreement includes 12 contracted vessels.

The system gives automatic notification if the speed consumption curve exceeds certain limits, which enables closer collaboration between Thorco Projects and their ship managers in order to continuously optimize vessel performance.

In addition, the system fosters closer internal collaboration between the performance and operations departments by both working with a single source of truth, easy to use and to share data.

“Operating a mixed fleet of own and chartered vessels in a spot-market business is often a challenge, since the operational vessel performance data are being evaluated from different perspectives with different priorities,” says Thomas Mikkelsen, CEOat Thorco Projects.

“Establishing a multi-tenant source of truth that ensures the same level of knowledge about operational data in real-time of different stakeholders is a step towards effective operations in a dynamic market based on collaboration,” he adds.

“The availability of operational vessel performance data at any place, at any time, is seen as an added value – especially by the technical managers amongst our customers using Bluetracker,” says Selke Eichler, Global Director Customer Support at Navis Carrier and Vessel Solutions.  

Besides the easy collaboration functionality, the system additionally runs a plausibility and estimation engine to ensure a level of high data consistency and quality based on data collection sources. It already proved successful at one of Thorco Projects’ ship owners before rolling out at Thorco.

By adding Thorco Projects’ contracted vessels being monitored with Bluetracker, the Bluetracker fleet has grown to more than 500 vessels of different types using onboard data collection (reported or measured) and / or vessel performance and emission compliance, monitoring and analyzing functionalities.