U-Ming Marine Transport and Ericsson Work Together to Lead Shipping Safety Upgrading

        Maritime safety is very important to the shipping industry. U-Ming Marine Transport, Taiwan's largest bulk carrier, has jointly built Fleet Safety Management (FSM) with Ericsson, the leading brand of telecommunications equipment, to achieve intelligent ship management. Since the launch of the Fleet Safety Management System, it has successfully prevented several submarines at sea. Successfully improve operational efficiency in the event of an accident.
        
         How to improve shipping safety and reduce maritime accidents has always been a major concern of the shipping industry, and the improvement of shipping safety will improve the efficiency of shipping. There are many factors affecting shipping safety, including ship collision, maritime conflict, weather factors and grounding accidents. Currently, the fleet safety management system provides "collision warning" and "pirate prediction" functions. This year, U-Ming Marine Transport and Ericsson Shipping further upgraded the fleet safety management system, adding "weather information", "anchor warning" and "dangerous area display" functions to improve the safety information of the fleet network and reduce accidents caused by weather and walrus effects.
        
         U-Ming Marine Transport, Xu Guoan's Deputy Executive president, said: "U-Ming Marine Transport continues to achieve intelligent fleet management and enhance shipping safety through ICT technology, and the deployment of fleet safety management system has successfully demonstrated its value. U-Ming Marine Transport and Ericsson are looking forward to adding weather information, anchor alarm and danger zone display functions to fleet safety management system to upgrade ship safety. As Taiwan's largest bulk carrier, U-Ming Marine Transport expects the fleet safety management system to become the benchmark system of shipping safety in the industry. "
        
         Ericsson Taiwan PresidentHe Keshen said: "Ericsson is pleased to be able to continue to assist the U-Ming Marine Transport fleet in digitization and enhance the safety of navigation. The joint development of the fleet safety management program demonstrates Ericsson's need to master the shipping industry and jointly realize innovative and intelligent ship management with advanced information and communication technology. It is believed that the upgraded solution will further help U-Ming Marine Transport improve its operational efficiency, and it is hoped that more shipping partners will benefit from the system in the future. "
        
         Weather Information System Combined with Stream Anchor Warning to Reduce Weather Impact on Navigation Safety
         Mastering weather information is an important factor affecting ship safety and ship efficiency. However, most of the meteorological information systems installed by bulk carriers or other marine meteorological information services on the market can not provide accurate information on ship location in real time, so Ericsson and U-Ming Marine Transport integrated weather information system, together with fleet safety. The management system will provide near-instantaneous ship position updates, which are expected to reduce weather-related accidents, provide more accurate ship information to shore-based surveillance personnel, and further assist in route adjustment to avoid potential dangerous areas.
        
         Because the coast of Taiwan is susceptible to the Northeast monsoon, the anchor after anchoring is loosened due to strong wind and waves, which results in the grounding of the current anchor. With this in mind, Ericsson and U-Ming Marine Transport plan to integrate anchor alarms into existing fleet safety management systems. When the ship is anchored, the "flow anchor alarm" will immediately give an alarm when the ship's displacement exceeds the safe range, so that the relevant personnel can deal with the grounding accident at the first time and prevent the occurrence of grounding accident (operation mode of the flow anchor alarm).
        
         Hazardous Area Display System for Reducing Maritime Conflicts
         How to avoid armed plunder at sea is also one of the key points of shipping safety. The International Maritime Bureau pointed out in its annual report of 2019 that the number of conflict incidents in which ships were locked in attacks increased by about 12% in the past (2018) year compared with the previous (2017). In order to avoid entering high-risk areas for ships'navigation routes, the Fleet Safety Management System also plans to incorporate "Dangerous Zone Display Function" to assist U-Ming Marine Transport shore monitoring room to master information and immediately release information about dangerous areas or areas that should not be accessed to the fleet. The Dangerous Zone Display Function will mark pirate-prone areas, fishing grounds and high-risk areas. A, HRA, Emission Control Area (ECA), etc. to protect U-Ming Marine Transport vessels from dangerous waters in order to reduce unnecessary insurance claims.
        
         Large bulk carriers under U-Ming Marine Transport have been introduced into fleet safety management system. The system is expected to be upgraded in the middle of this year to include functions such as weather information system, anchor alarm and dangerous area display system. U-Ming Marine Transport also expects to further reduce operating costs.