OrbitMI and DTN bring maritime weather analytics to a new level

Once upon a time, automobiles did not have seat belts.  They became mandatory in 1968.  Same thing with airbags:  At one point, no airbags in cars.  They became mandatory in 1998.  And intermittent wiper blades took decades to become a standard feature.   

Can you even imagine purchasing a new automobile that lacked seat belts or airbags or intermittent wipers?  Of course not.  Once those innovations became available, going back to older vehicles that lacked those features was no longer realistic.  

We may be at such a moment with maritime technology, except it didn’t take decades to get here.  Read on.

Our integration means faster and better decision-making

As we’ve said before, for information to have an impact it must arrive on time. It’s one thing to collect data. It’s another thing to synthesize that data into an insight you can use to make decisions. But getting that insight to the right person at the right moment is another thing entirely.  

The fact is:  Multi-step processes and copying-and-pasting from siloed systems slow things down.   This week, we announced our partnership with DTN, a leading weather data, analytics and technology company that serves many industries including maritime.  We will integrate several DTN APIs into Orbit to create even richer visualizations that our customers can use to make faster, better decisions.   

In other words, our integration with DTN should speed you up. 

As Renny Vandewege, DTN Vice President of Weather Operations put it in our press release, “Integrating our enriched weather data into the Orbit workflow means that all teams, from the office to the ocean, have a single source of truth. It removes the need to switch between single-purpose systems and apps and provides richer, more comprehensive insights.”

Use case: More accurate vessel tracking 

In addition to speed, our integration will create connected workflows that materially improve the quality of decision-making.   

For instance, take vessel tracking and notifications (click here to learn more about our Sentry solution).  With DTN providing updates every 5 minutes, including weather conditions and current impact, ship owners can track their fleets with additional intelligence and granularity.  They can track speed over ground and translate that to actual speed through the water, improving the accuracy of measures such as speed, consumption, CO2 emissions and emissions per nautical mile.

Use case:  Actionable mobile alerts 

Or, imagine you’re a vessel operator who receives an alert on the Orbit Connect mobile app which includes specific weather and route-related information such as:  

“Your vessel is not currently sailing the optimal route.  Adverse weather developing along your vessel’s current route is expected to delay the ETA by 14 hours and consume an additional 14.1 MT, when compared against the weather optimized route.”   

Imagine you can transmit that weather optimized route directly to the vessel from the same app.  

The weather optimized route is often the safest route. As DTN notes, "No industry on earth is more conscious of the need for maritime weather safety than the shipping sector."  With weather insights from DTN integrated into Orbit, shipowners, charterers and operators can take the necessary actions to keep vessels and crews safe.  

Will the innovations of today--particularly those associated with safety--be industry standards tomorrow?  Will we look back at the “older models” of technology, like we look back at older automobile models, and wonder how we (overcame lack of safety ) or how to get things done?  Time will tell.  Our partnership with DTN presents a myriad of possibilities. 

If you want to learn more about those possibilities and the integration between DTN and OrbitMI, join us for “Transforming weather into a strategic advantage for vessel operations” a webinar on September 16th at 03:00 PM London time.