Inmarsat has signed a business cooperation agreement that allows Hyundai Global Service(HGS) to offer ship owners and managers a digital total care solution route to maritime digitalisation. HGS was established in 2016 by parent group Hyundai Heavy Industries as a digital transformation solutions provider to optimise ship operation and performance.
The ground-breaking agreement paves the way for a cooperation that will include the use of Fleet Xpress Dedicated Bandwidth Services by HGS to support its digital services for shipowners plus recognition of HGS as a Certified Application Partner(CAP) within Inmarsat’s digital ecosystem.
The formal agreement has been announced after the completion of trials on board three ships over a three month period, testing a variety of sensor-driven applications measuring voyage and equipment operating data including fuel consumption and vibration monitoring, plus HGS analytics and reporting services.
The Inmarsat CAP programme allows application and software developers to choose their own route to digital enablement via either a Dedicated Bandwidth Service over Fleet Xpress or FleetBroadband or through a dedicated API that allows access to Fleet Data, Inmarsat’s cloud-based IoT platform. This means shipowners and ship managers have more choice when it comes to IoT-based solutions, building on Inmarsat’s maritime digital portfolio and Committed Information Rates.
The terms of the agreement offer HGS the opportunity to expand its digital total care solution to encompass different applications aimed at helping shipowners and ship managers to enhance ship efficiency and reduce operating costs.
Stefano Poli, VP, Business Development, Inmarsat Maritime described the agreement with HGS as a significant milestone in the offering being made to third party service providers enabling maritime digitalisation. “The Hyundai-Inmarsat agreement is effectively the first of its kind and marks the commercial service introduction of Inmarsat’s Fleet Xpress Dedicated Bandwidth Services as part of our portfolio of solutions for Certified Application Providers” he said. “With this new service, HGS is now strengthening its value proposition of applications to monitor and analyse ship performance for existing and new customers”
Since its launch in March 2016, Fleet Xpress has been installed on board around 7,000 ships, establishing itself as the market-leading maritime broadband connectivity option in commercial shipping. A report published in 2018 by market analyst Euroconsult indicated that Fleet Xpress was the fastest growing maritime VSAT service.
HGS has already signalled that it intends to extend its ship digitalisation offering into the retrofit market, with discussions continuing with Inmarsat on options to provide a bundle of connectivity, certified hardware, and HGS’s Digital Transformation services as a ‘Shipyard Service Package’