“OCTOPUS is an industry-accepted standard,” says Rinse van Lievenoogen, Chief Technical Officer at Red Box Energy Services, a company that provides marine transportation solutions for leading engineering, production and construction companies such as TechnipFMC, JGC Corporation, KBR and Chiyoda.
On the shore side in Rotterdam, Red Box Energy Services uses the OCTOPUS-Office software suite to predict motions and accelerations at sea. The solution helps estimate the expected forces that the cargo will encounter in transit. “Most important for us is, obviously, the motion behavior of the ship and its cargo,” says Van Lievenoogen, adding that ABB’s solution lets his team quickly assess whether the crew on board took the necessary actions during changing weather.
On the vessel side, the company utilizes the OCTOPUS-Onboard decision support solution to predict motions and forces and avoid unfavorable weather conditions that could have a negative impact on the vessel and its cargo. Combining navigation and weather data, vessel characteristics, loading conditions and other relevant parameters such as speed and course, ABB’s software generates a motion forecast. The forecast helps define maximum allowable motions, presenting this data in a single-screen view on the bridge.