Weathernews Launches New Service Supporting ‘Greener Shipping & Sea Logistics’

Weathernews Inc (WNI), the world’s leading weather intelligence company, has upgraded its OSR-e (Optimum Ship Routeing) and PMS-e (Performance Monitoring Service) sea-planning tools as part of its Total Fleet Management Service concept to support customers manage their emissions goals.

Both OSR-e and PSM-e update Weathernews’ existing OSR and PMS services incorporating additional Carbon Intensity Indicator (CII) and CO2 environmental content in the embedded ship performance models. The strategy is to help fleet operators establish seamless emissions target management and reporting.

Ready to support customers today and tomorrow

“The shipping industry is in the process of a major transition. At a time of both economic and political uncertainty, and with environmental regulations bound to become increasingly strict in the future, there are many moving parts to consider. Having an effective PDCA [plan, do check, and analyze] cycle in place is paramount to ensure continuous improvement and smarter operations. Our new service is designed to empower clients with best-in-class tools and highly granular data to achieve their own green agenda,” said Global Sales Leader Keemoon Kwon.

The service’s overall value proposition is supporting customers’ work towards decarbonization and managing both CII rating and CO2 targets.

“Combining our system with risk communications while enjoying the value provided from our legacy OSR and PMS services gives customers a cost-effective, one-stop service solution to enable optimized PDCA,” Kwon added.

Simplified cloud-based solution

OSR-e and PMS-e have been migrated into a single, cloud-based system making the platform simple to access and use. 

“The system provides superior monitoring, providing the best real-time voyage routing matching customers’ business priorities while sending timely alerts when a vessel or vessels drift off their target CII rating or planned CO2 emissions,” Kwon said.

Leveraging Weathernews’ highly accurate weather, route, and voyage data, and cutting-edge technology, the platform is backed up by meteorologists, risk communications experts, and Voyage Planners on the ground in the company’s global operations centers. 

“All our teams in Weathernews Voyage Planning group are very excited with the new servicesolution launch, to support our customers’ needs to optimize the voyage optimization process. We look forward to addressing a joint challenge with our valued customers to achieve the best yield of commercial interest, while maintaining their vessels’ targeted CII rating or other CO2 reduction goals, and eventually helping to decarbonize the industry,” Kwon said.

Tested and proven in the field

The new service has been tested by key shipping clients, including international open-hatch bulker operator Saga Welco AS.

“Optimizing fleet performance while enhancing safety, efficiency and environmental responsiveness is key to ensuring successful and profitable operations. Weathernews’ new solution is a user-friendly and empowering solution that will be a core part of our operational optimization efforts going forward,” confirmed Saga Welco Vessel Performance Manager Helge Røttingen.

Proactively engaging customers

Weathernews is gearing up to present its new service to existing European clients at two Green Forums in Athens and Elsinore next month, designed to be part of an ongoing collaborative arena. The plan is also to roll out promotions that provide added-value benefits to existing customers in the region.

 “The forums will be primarily informative and educative occasions on our updated services while addressing the CII framework, how to improve vessel ratings, and, not least, why forecast accuracy is so important, among other challenges. Key elements will be open discussion and panel debates on the challenges customers are facing. Harvesting useful feedback on their concerns and wishes means we can refine and fine-tune our solutions on an ongoing basis to add as much value as possible. Nobody can decarbonize in isolation; we all need to make the right choices together,” Kwon concluded.

About Weathernews

Weathernews Inc. (Head Office: Mihama-ku, Chiba-shi; CEO: Chihito Kusabiraki) was founded in 1986 and is one of the largest weather information companies in the world. We started as a service supporting safe maritime operations aimed at shipping companies, and we now provide weather information services 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to clients across 44 different markets in a total of 50 countries around the world. With our guiding motto of “wanting to help people in times of crisis,” we continue to take on new challenges with an innovative approach, such as developing our own original radar to pick up torrential rainstorms and sudden strong winds, launching weather satellites to capture views of sea ice in the Arctic Sea, and making use of AI technology to achieve high- accuracy weather forecast.