At Hamburg’s SMM marine trade show this week, Accelleron is delighted to introduce Turbo SmartCare, its latest advanced service offering for four-stroke, medium-speed vessels.
Turbo SmartCare offers a data-driven service plan that removes the hassle of turbocharger maintenance from ship owners or operators – with Accelleron taking on the responsibility, costs and risks associated with servicing turbochargers, including unexpected events. The service is charged at a fixed price to cover all service requirements at a predictable level.
Rather than servicing at fixed time or distance intervals, when the work and expenditure may not actually be required, Turbo SmartCare works from digital meter readings submitted by the ship’s crew from the engine’s control system, such as temperature, pressure and speed readings.
A combination of algorithmic and expert-led analysis of these readings enables Accelleron to remotely determine when maintenance is required as well as providing a diagnosis of what actions are required. Experts at Accelleron will also be able to use the vessel-specific data to provide Turbo SmartCare customers with insightful advice, for example, on how to fine-tune Time Between Overhauls (TBO) to allow alignment of the engine overhaul with that of the turbocharger.
Dr. Thorsten Bosse, Head of Global Service Product Management at Accelleron, told us: “Historically, every turbocharger received much the same treatment, but now we can start optimising maintenance based on data from the specific application. Every turbocharger has a different journey – different loads, speeds and distances – creating a unique combination which bears on what maintenance is required and when. Turbo SmartCare allows us to deliver a unique service plan for every vessel, based on its actual conditions.”
Customers will be able to tap into the details of their ships’ specific maintenance details, from anywhere, at any time, using the new Loreka customer portal. This provides both a big picture view of entire fleets, with a traffic-light style indication of maintenance needs, and also allows a more granular view of the specific details of individual turbochargers. If customers have adopted other digital solutions from Accelleron, such as Tekomar Xpert, information from those products will be available alongside for a holistic view of vessel and fleet health.
Thorsten notes that the launch of a digital product, like SmartCare, is quite different to the launch of a physical product: “With physical products, the launch is, in some ways, the end of the journey for us: it’s the culmination of all the testing and adjustments. Digital is very different. This is more like the beginning. As we gather data over coming years, we’ll be able to develop our understanding much more finely. We’ll be able to start applying machine learning and pattern recognition algorithms to the data, to understand much more clearly what’s happening on every vessel, and provide individual advice and care.”
Find more details about Turbo SmartCare.