CMA keynotes: AI, competitive instincts, mental health and complexity

Lucinda Lessley - Acting Administrator, US Maritime Administration (MARAD) opened the round of keynotes with a tour of the Biden Administration’s areas of focus for the transport sector, and a list of investments totalling hundreds of millions of dollars for maritime infrastructure.

Lessley also raised the issue of mental health in the industry, citing a study that found almost 21% of mariners were at risk of major depressive disorder and 23% at risk for generalised anxiety disorder. “These findings are startling especially with international studies that show increasing crew shortages, and MARAD is now working with stakeholders to raise awareness of this issue and to promote ways in which mariners can seek assistance.”

Looking at lightening the load on decision makers, V. Group CIO Stephen McFarlane spoke on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in support of workers who need to think and exploit knowledge to handle problems, ‘knowledge workers’.

AI holds the promise of relieving information overload on knowledge workers by carrying out repetitive, low-value tasks, providing information gleaned from data sets beyond the capabilities for humans to process, and offering critical insights to assist in decision making, said McFarlane.

“It's not going to go away. It's going to evolve; it's going to be quicker to deploy in the future. I'd encourage anyone to start to think about how AI can be used to make their operation more efficient, more effective, safer, and make it a real accelerator to their business,” said McFarlane.

Knut Ørbeck-Nilssen - CEO, Maritime, DNV summarised his keynote which covered decarbonisation, digitalisation, safety and cross-industry collaboration with a call to action: “If you remember anything from what I said today, please remember this start your energy transition now. Energy efficiency and assistive technology can help significantly reduce your carbon emissions today.

“Secondly, let's suppress our competitive instincts and embrace the experience of collaboration. We win by working together the true fuel of the future is collaboration. And thirdly, safety is the single most important factor in ensuring that successful and timely transition to a carbon neutral tomorrow,” said Ørbeck-Nilssen.

Rear Admiral John Mauger - Assistant Commandant for Prevention Policy at USCG looked at the triple threat facing the maritime industry in the US, the desire to increase capacity, the need to reduce environmental impact and the resulting increase in complexity.

Those three factors were reshaping the broad work of the coastguard, he said.

Mauger gave multiple examples of technologies and developments that USCG were adapting to, from the widespread use of lithium-ion batteries in goods to increasing use of waterways, catastrophic failures of complex vessels systems to companies like SpaceX landing rockets on drone ships in the ocean.

Patrick Ryan, Sr. Vice President, Global Engineering and Technology, ABS covered potential move to full well-to-wake emissions accounting for the maritime industry at the IMO, and the factors driving ESG for vessels in less regulated inland waterways.

“You see, just as safety is becoming more synonymous with security and reliability, financial performance is increasingly synonymous with ESG excellence. And so, just as ISM is the future framework for safety and security in shipping, ESG is the future framework of business in shipping. Both are blueprints for the sustainable future of our industry across safety, operations, and business performance

“And so, if you do not know your upstream emissions profile today, then you more than likely will this time next year. It is clear today that knowing the answer is no longer a simple marker of sustainability stewardship but an increasingly inextricable aspect of doing business – whether that’s on the lakes, brownwater, bluewater, east, west coast or the Gulf – it’s a reflection of an organization’s readiness to prosper in the new maritime normal,” said Ryan.

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