No abstract

Marine vessels are highly customizable solutions, designed to perform multiple missions in shifting environments for many years. The successful utilization of sensors and relevant data in vessel design requires forward thinking and consideration of stakeholders and current design processes. While heterogeneous sources of data are available from vessels such as speed, engine performance, orientation, and slamming forces, correlation to a particular design facet requires considerable effort and design experience to create a more comprehensive picture of the context. We provide a structured approach incorporating constraints for proper data acquisition collected from active (operational/real) vessel based upon post data processing through event-based information, to become a relevant approach for practical design problems. With this approach, incorporation of stakeholder and usage information facilitate an improved design process, providing traceability between the link of data streams and design decisions.

No abstract

As complex systems, maritime vessels generate and require the utilization of large amounts of data for maximum efficiency. Designing, developing, and deploying these systems in a digital world requires rethinking how people interact and utilize technology throughout all areas of the industry. With growing interests in Industry 4.0, there are broad opportunities for the incorporation and development of new digital solutions that will support the improvement and optimization of next generation systems. However, while different technologies have been deployed with various levels of success the current challenge is not generating data but being able to harmoniously integrate different data streams into the decision-making process. To support the development of next generation vessels, a comprehensive understanding of Maritime 4.0 is necessary. Current conceptions of 4.0 within the industry remain ambiguous and based on our research, have demonstrated a divergence in the levels of technological maturity and digital solutions in different industry sectors. This study leverages current state-of-the-art literature and a series of interviews to formulate a descriptive definition of Maritime 4.0 that incorporates technologies that can be integrated to support decision-making. Through a rigorous, empirically grounded, and contextually relevant approach, the contribution of this study is the establishment of an organized set of technologies and characteristics related to 4.0 and establishment of a practical definition. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Business-to-Business (B2B) enterprise systems and services have become increasingly important for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) over the last few years. Their major potential is observable in the massive reduction of business transaction costs and enhanced cross-sectoral collaboration. A successful B2B marketplace should ensure greater transparency and trust while performing business processes. Among different ways to build transparency and trust, IoT-based traceability system can enable partners to track products and monitor the quality of production processes. Partners can principally trust each other and can avoid fraudulent malpractices. It is, however, still insufficient to prevent fraud and fight against counterfeit and inferior products due to data manipulation. Blockchain technology is a promising technology to prevent fraud through its data immutability characteristic. However, the adoption of Blockchain technology in IoT-based traceability system for SMEs entails significant challenges. For example, the transition of a large volume of IoT data from company-owned databases to Blockchain network would require a significant shift in terms of IT infrastructure. This paper discusses the typical challenges and presents an approach to handle them. It can be helpful to pave the way to support SMEs adopt Blockchain technology in IoT-based traceability system.