MARITIME INFORMATICS – ACADEMICS AND PRACTITIONERS PERSPECTIVE

“The maritime industry is plagued by disjointed processes, originating from centuries old practices. The replication of information, and multiple handover points, result in inefficiencies and waste, which curtail, rather than accelerate, global trade. With digitalization, the maritime sector has begun to seize the opportunity to re-engineer and collaborate through the development of data standards and process re-engineering. Maritime informatics is thus becoming a new domain, which is critical for enabling innovation and efficiency in the global supply chains.”, Steen Erik Larsen, Head of Technology Mergers & Acquisitions, Maersk.

Domain knowledge is the key predictor of the success of any intervention, such as an implementing an information system or a having a hip replacement. Consequently, as a field grows it forks into specialist areas. For example, medicine now has over a hundred specialties, from allergists to vascular surgeons. Maritime Informatics has emerged as a specialist area of information systems, because a deep domain knowledge of shipping and transport is essential for information systems designers to communicate with industry executives and to understand specific relevant technologies, such as AIS and smart containers.”, Professor Rick Watson, University of Georgia, U.S.A

”The COVID-19 crisis has given a further push to maritime informatics and the digitalization of logistics. We now need to ensure that we lock-in the advances made during lock-down. This will then also help us with our next and even bigger challenge: The decarbonization of shipping.”, Jan Hoffmann, Chief, Trade Logistics Branch, Division on Technology and Logistics, UNCTAD

Shipping is global, digitalization enables global connectivity, and there are numerous opportunities coming out of digitally gluing the many actors engaged in the maritime transport chains together. By the discipline of Maritime Informatics, we can now join forces in securing a sustainable world.”, Associate Professor Mikael Lind, Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE) and Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden