The Dutch company Amarcon is widely recognized within the maritime world for her state of the art decision support solutions that help shipping companies execute operations in a more efficient and safe manner. Where the company in her early days mainly focused on end-users like offshore contractors and shipping companies, important other opportunities rise at the horizon. The demand for OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) solutions in ECDIS applications and routing programs is rapidly expanding. The first steps on the OEM Market where made in 2010, when Amarcon signed an agreement with Maris for the joint development of a Voyage Decision Support system. This system combines spot on navigation and decision support.
Amarcon developed the OCTOPUS-Seakeeping API (Application Program Interface), that can easily interface within routing and ECDIS programs. The OCTOPUS-Seakeeping API, provides motion, velocities and acceleration forecasts for individual vessels. This output is a result of various wave measurements or forecasted conditions collected from the weather forecast. When the API is interfaced with an ECDIS, the impact of waves, currents and environmental conditions on the ships motions can be displayed for actual and simulated situations. The routing advice will be more precise.
Amarcon’s R&D Manager, Evert Schippers , sees many possibilities for the OCTOPUS-Seakeeping API for integration in 3rd party software like routing programs and ECDIS suppliers: “This is a whole other approach to the market for our company. I believe that ECDIS suppliers and manufacturers of routing programs can distinguish themselves from their competitors in a major way when interfacing with the OCTOPUS-Seakeeping API. Knowing where to go is of course important for a captain, but knowing how the weather along the route will impact the motions of the vessel, is probably even more important for any shipping company.”
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Source: Amarcon, June 28, 2011.