How will AI transform the shipping industry?

Artificial intelligence in shipping can provide advanced analytics, automated equipment, safety and improved security, route optimisation, and performance forecasting



Recruit 19 will recruit AI and robotics specialists for shipping companies in Port Melbourne, Port Botany (Sydney), Port Brisbane, Fremantle Port (Perth) and Port Adelaide. It will also recruit robotics specialists to facilitate pick packing by robots in warehouses.

Recruit 19 recognises that AI and robotics will transform the shipping industry. To meet the expected growth in global maritime freight transportation revenue, industry—logistics, ports, shipping, etc.—will need to add AI to its armoury of digital technologies. And Recruit 19 will select the specialists for this.

AI will provide the industry with advanced analytics, automated equipment with machine learning capabilities helping in the analysis of historical data by considering such things as weather patterns or busy/slow shipping seasons and automating processes identifying problems before they happen, allowing time to make adjustments, reducing accidents by detecting threats before they happen, building optimization models to determine the most efficient route to take, predicting the best path with minimum fuel consumption, and considering the weather can be calculated and improved performance forecasting.

In its submission to the Productivity Commission, the Australian Industry Group says we need to address skills gaps that will inevitably arise with the use of autonomous vehicles in the shipping industry.

The AI Group says:

“The workforce will need to be familiarised with the regulatory framework surrounding safety and compliance involving the operation of autonomous vehicles. Furthermore, greater automation will mean greater reliance on computer systems and, by extension, greater vulnerability to cyber threats, as autonomous systems rely on the proper functioning of their computer systems. The ports and shipping industry will require a skilled workforce to prevent cyber security events and to mitigate the adverse effects of any such incident. Such transitions and upskilling also requires input from current port operators to better inform government policies aimed at alleviating current and future skills shortages in the ports and shipping sector”.

Recruit 19 will be selecting AI and robotics specialists in these areas.

Work is already underway to develop self-steering vessels, employing similar technology to the Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) in cars to collect a continuous stream of data from a vessel’s environmental surroundings.

Ocius Technology in Sydney is now developing uncrewed robot boats which would be perfect for ferries.

Watch this space. Recruit 19 will be there.