II. Suggestions on Innovations for Maritime Future
1. What Should be Targeted?
1.1 Reliability/Availability/Maintainability
Looking the issue in general, availability is the most important factor for marine transportation media. And availability is supported by reliability, and maintainability affects reliability and cost. It seems these are apparent to everybody concerned, but voice appealing to increase reliability is strangely small.
1.1.1 Related present situations are as listed below. To improve these aspects, cooperative assessment by operator, shipbuilder and vendor is necessary.;
1) Malfunction data tend to be kept as in-house secrecy in most organizations excepting the Classes etc. who may have some available.
2) Even under such circumstances, Ship Research Institute of Japan made 114k data base since 1982 as a valuable effort, but it is still insufficient. Cooperation from operators and equipment vendors to pile up data is necessary.
3) As a frame work for data accumulation and utilization system, NCALS(Nippon CALS) made an experiment for shared database structure, but this still remains as a proposal.(Refer to Fig.1)
4) Also Classification Societies are going to expand their data base.
1.1.2 The second aspect, equipment vendor shall make endeavor to sell more reliable equipment. For this purpose;
1) Market life of one model had better be long, and when model change does take place such change should be drastic.
2) This will allow the vendors to sell proven equipment after good service tests.
3) Vendors must not aim for the cheapest. Let their customers pay reasonably for reliability. Dialogue between Ship Owners Association of Japan(SOAJ) and Shipbuilders Association of Japan(SAJ) on reliability is about to start which is welcomed in this sense.
4) Relying on the fact that ship is afloat even when machinery is out of order, spoils improvement of reliability. Precaution to vibration on airplane is at much higher level compared with that on ship.
