The butterfly effect
A dynamic overview of what rules and restrictions apply has become essential, not only when planning a voyage, but for remaining compliant throughout the journey. Today, digital platforms can provide the necessary information in near real time, reducing the risk of errors that arise when regulations are manually sourced from multiple systems.
It is difficult enough to get everything right when planning a route: understanding environmental restrictions along the way, avoiding the risk of illegal discharges, and ensuring that record-keeping is accurate and timely.
In chaos theory, there is what has become known as the butterfly effect. This essentially means that any small change in a set system can have an increasingly greater and largely unpredictable effect later on as it spreads. This can equally be applied to unavoidable changes to a ship’s voyage plan.
Let’s take, for example, a ship setting out from port A with a fairly direct routing to port B. The voyage plan has been well prepared with all the appropriate rules and regulations to be faced along the way taken into consideration, with the required speed and fuel costs estimated. After leaving port A, however, an unforecasted severe storm occurs, or a main engine failure forces an unexpected diversion – either to avoid the bad weather or to steam to the nearest port for repairs.
In these circumstances, the original voyage plan no longer applies. Everything has changed. Now, the ship may be navigating its way through a completely different set of environmental zones. Its speed and fuel consumption estimates no longer apply, and its estimated time of arrival (ETA) at port B has to be re-calculated. Because of this, the logistics for delivering the cargo and/or loading a new cargo at port B can be severely disrupted.
Furthermore, if the cargo is perishable, the delay could destroy its value. The change of route could, in fact, affect the entire supply chain relating to the cargo being transported, which, in turn could affect manufacturing and production schedules in a multitude of locations. The butterfly has spread its wings!
A digital response
Fortunately, the digital technology can make a huge contribution to mitigating the butterfly effect. Digitisation, for example, has eliminated the time-consuming task of manually sourcing the plethora of international, regional, and local maritime regulations. Instead, modern regulatory compliance platforms provide constantly updated digital databases of international, regional and local maritime regulations. Solutions such as OneOcean’s Regs4ships, help both ship and shore teams stay aligned with requirements in force anywhere in the world. Teams are thus kept up-to-date and compliant with requirements in force at any time anywhere in the world. Users can also be notified of upcoming changes to legislation, thus easing and enabling efficient planning far in advance of the actual voyage.
Voyage plans are never set in stone, and stakeholders need to be able to react to the need to make routing and other changes. Here again digitisation simplifies and significantly speeds the gathering and analysation of data in order to determine the optimal route. With modern technology, built-in algorithms enable changes to be made dynamically, while commercial considerations relating to fuel consumption, speed, scheduling and cargo requirements are also simplified.
Effective response to a change in situation comes down to efficient communication between ship and shore and dynamic solutions that adjust in real time. With the right digital systems in place, planning can be made in accordance with unfolding circumstances. As changes to the voyage plan become necessary, teams onboard and onshore can have an immediate view of the whole picture and take all appropriate steps in a timely fashion. Compliance can be a challenge, but with the right help, the challenge can be met.