“With demand for digitised shipping increasing, we are adding capacity to keep up with the pace,” says Bjørn Ørving, Head of Digital at Maersk Tankers. “We’re also reorchestrating our team, moving from a generalist digital department to one of expertise in high-demand areas.”

Maersk Tankers’ digital strategy is aimed at developing solutions that support partner experience, enhance vessel efficiency, and cut carbon emissions.

For instance, charterers need to decide on how best to utilise the fleet to maximise its potential and partner earnings. This entails selecting the best suitable vessel for each voyage based on its speed and fuel consumption, as well as calculating the best voyage route while taking future positioning into consideration. This typically involves a lot of time and manual calculations; now, however, the digital team is creating solutions that can help charterers make these calculations in a matter of seconds.

The company will continue to combine human expertise with digital solutions, as human capability and skill are necessary in providing insights that artificial intelligence (AI) and algorithms lack. These new solutions will render time-consuming mathematical work redundant, presenting charterers with options to decide from.

“We’re working towards providing the best possible software that can ensure our brilliant colleagues are able to focus on providing even better services and solutions,” says Ørving.

The digital team is looking to hire 16 new employees this year, largely data scientists, data engineers, and back- and front-end developers. Seven of these positions will be reallocated from an agency to the inhouse digital team at Maersk Tankers.

A third of the new technical developers hired will be new graduates or juniors, with the company taking co-responsibility for their development in the field of digital technology. The team will also be working closely with universities and sharing data with them for research.