MacGregor to unveil digital advances at SMM 2018

(HAMBURG, Germany) — MacGregor, part of Cargotec, will introduce a pioneering new digital solution for break-bulk stowage at this year's SMM exhibition. Alongside this, MacGregor has developed other elements of its digital portfolio, MacGregor Smart, and will showcase these capabilities during daily presentations at the exhibition held in Hamburg, Germany, between Sept. 4-7. These will include:
 
• OnWatch Scout: Building on years of remote-equipment access with offshore cranes, MacGregor will now offer a new intelligent prediction service for equipment on merchant vessels. MacGregor OnWatch Scout can predict and monitor upcoming critical issues and communicate them to customers, reducing unplanned downtime and giving back more cost control to the operator or owner of the equipment. The service also includes access to MacGregor OnWatch experts, who can connect to the equipment and effectively help resolve ongoing issues.
 
• Voyage and port optimizer: This is the world's first and currently the only platform for pure car truck carrier (PCTC) operators to analyze port calls and identify efficiency improvements. Until now, there has not been an effective way of measuring time spent in port and recognizing reasons for delays. These generate known, but undetectable losses and by identifying them MacGregor can save operators as much as $2.5 million per vessel per year, while also reducing environmental impact.
 
• Autonomous crane operations: MacGregor and ESL Shipping Oy, part of Aspo Plc, are developing and testing an autonomous discharging feature on MacGregor bulk-handling cranes. These will be the world's first autonomous discharging cranes equipped with self-learning capabilities.
 
Safety remains a key consideration and at SMM MacGregor will also demonstrate how safety improvements can be made by adopting fully-immersive virtual reality (VR) training programs.
 
For more information, visit www.macgregor.com.

By Professional Mariner Staff