As Dualog racks up its 1,000^th installation of Dualog® Drive, clients are reporting savings of just under 200 man-hours per month as the product simplifies distribution of documents, data, software updates, IoT data and large files across the entire fleet.

For the maritime sector in particular, the sharing of files and digital resources has historically been tricky, the mobility of vessels making it reliant on limited bandwidth and software constrained by the box installed. But recent trends amplified by the pandemic show a doubling or even trebling of data downloaded onto vessels compared to previous years, and this will not subside now that digitalisation has been embraced so widely within the industry – putting unprecedented levels of stress on communications links. Maintaining connectivity between shore and ship is now crucial with the increase in IoT onboard, monitoring of data, and the rising need to send large files between the two.

The introduction of Dualog® Drive, software purpose-built for the shipping industry to manage collection and distribution of large amounts of data between vessels and onshore operations, resolves the issue of labour intensity involved when using email to send files (the recipient needing to open each email individually, download the attachment and subsequently save it in the correct location). There are also substantial time and productivity losses and financial costs associated with sending files via courier from ship to shore. Furthermore, clients regularly experience errors related to file size limitations and breaks in transmission when transferring files by email. Another problem is the lack of management overview of the amounts of data transmitted or even the status of files delivered.

Dualog Drive ensures that any document created on shore is automatically received in the correct location on all vessels, or in specified segments of the fleet. The system is ideal for transferring large amounts of data between ship and shore, facilitating the use of IoT on ships, monitoring of data and sending large files. The data to be transferred can come from any source, system, or sensor/machinery onboard – all without any manual input.

A recent Dualog Webinar highlights the benefits for companies such as MOL Chemical Tankers, NYK Group and TB Marine who are using Dualog® Drive. They found that generic cloud-based systems such as DropBox and OneDrive simply do not offer the specialised solution needed for maritime where bandwidth, airtime and latency are all challenging. The move to Drive for them has reaped rewards in terms of financial and time savings, in the case of MOL Chemical Tankers 186 man-hours per month, not to mention facilitating the digitalisation of systems on board.

The use cases are growing daily and really the possibilities are unlimited.  Dualog is finding that initially discussions are with IT departments but, as other departments see the potential of the system, they also open a dialogue with the company. It currently observes the solution used for disparate tasks like synchronising document libraries, sending operational data from ships to ship managers onshore, distributing software updates and patches, or even transferring CCTV images from ship to shore.

Silje Moan, Dualog’s Chief Commercial Officer, said: “When developing Drive, our aim was to take away the pain of moving data between ship and shore with a product that functions independently of systems already in use.  Dualog® Drive can be installed and ready to use within hours, and in fact, clients can set up a trial simply by opening an account and clicking on the link on our website.”