AST Harnesses the Power of Connectivity, Digitalization
Summary
The maritime industry is often lamented as slow on the uptake of new technologies, but many of these boats and ships were born and raised in an analog society, designed to last up to 50 years. “Theres a lot of change happening in the industry, but you need to think about it in a number of ways,” said Andrew Peters, CEO of AST in a recent interview with Maritime Reporter TV. “The retrofitting of technology into existing vessels is slightly more difficult, but the new vessels coming out all-embracing with digital connectivity solutions is happening now.” According to Peters, unlocking the true value that digital solutions offer is not about any one factor, such as increased connectivity speed, rather it’s “all of these things coming together in a managed service portfolio,” which has served to help shape AST’s business plan and offering to the sector. Peters and his AST team see digital technology and automation as providing many of the answers, a guiding principle for its product and service development in recent years. And that is around some of the things that are really important in the market, such as crew welfare, which is massively important.” IRAMS is AST’s dedicated software platform designed to support the maritime sector, and the aim of IRAMS is to allow vessel owners and managers to remotely control and monitor maritime assets, bringing together live asset performance data, predictive maintenance scheduling and environmental impact reporting onto a single platform.