The Smart Maritime Council, the cross-industry membership group created by the Smart Maritime Network to improve technology interoperability in the industry, has announced its intention to support the use of the ISO 19848 data standard for shipboard machinery and equipment following a unanimous vote at the Council’s most recent meeting in Rotterdam.
The Smart Maritime Council brings together maritime service and equipment providers, vessel operators and related industry stakeholders to discuss issues of technology compatibility, standardisation and harmonisation across the global transport chain.
Over the course of the last year the group has undertaken discussions at a series of regional meetings in maritime centres including London, Athens, Oslo, Tokyo, Copenhagen and Singapore, during which time ISO 19848 was proposed as a first standard to be officially supported by the Council. This proposal was accepted with a unanimous vote in favour during the first meeting of 2020, held on 18 February at the offices of the Stolt-Nielsen Group in Rotterdam.
“We are delighted that the diverse range of organisations represented within the Smart Maritime Council have been able to come together in the spirit of collaboration to support this independent data standard,” said Rob O’Dwyer, Chief Network Officer at Smart Maritime Network and Chairman of the Council.
“The discussions that have taken place over the last twelve months have been tremendously encouraging, with companies that may be competitors outside of our meetings recognising the value of collaboration on issues of benefit to the wider industry and committing to working together to enhance the data sharing capabilities of the maritime sector as a whole.”
“With some of the industry’s biggest names supporting this common standard, both technology providers and shipping companies alike, we hope to inspire other maritime stakeholders outside of our group to also support the use of ISO 19848 within their own IT systems. The wider these standards are applied, the easier it will be for ship operators to extract value from their vessel data without needing to waste resources on customised system implementations.”
ISO 19848 ‘Ships and marine technology — Standard data for shipboard machinery and equipment’ was published in October 2018, formalising years of research and development work originally carried out as part of a Smart Ship Application Platform (SSAP) joint industry project launched in Japan in 2012. >>>continued on page 2