ShipsFocus’ anniversary report argues that maritime digitalisation has reached a point where shipowners and managers need to look beyond individual applications and address the gaps between vessels, systems, people and physical operations. Its proposed Maritime Digital Infrastructure framework brings together physical activity, keeping coordination online and digital platforms to support continuous coordination across maritime networks.
Maritime supports more than $35 trillion in annual trade flows and more than 12 billion tonnes of cargo movement each year, according to ShipsFocus’ The Ocean Between Systems, a 10th anniversary report by Chye Poh Chua with contributions from the ShipsFocus Investment Team.
For shipowners and managers, the report argues that the next phase of digitalisation is less about adding another application and more about connecting the systems already used across vessel operations, ports, agents and shore teams.
“Maritime is not one network. It is a network of networks, and networks of networks,” the report states.
The report maps a shipment across five interconnected tiers: cargo, broker, operator, agent, and port and port services. While each operates within its own network, decisions and information flow between them. Physical activities such as inspections, bunker deliveries, pilot boarding and cargo operations can generate information that remains outside digital systems.
ShipsFocus calls the process of bringing these activities into the digital flow Maritime Online-Merge-Offline (MOMO). The report argues that digital systems cannot coordinate activities they cannot see, leaving gaps between what happens physically and what shore-based systems can record.
This has direct implications for fleet management. A ship manager may have separate systems for maintenance, compliance, port operations and commercial activity, yet the work connecting those systems can still rely on people, messages and manual intervention.
ShipsFocus identifies another gap around interoperability. Information exchange alone does not create coordination when several parties must respond to one another in sequence. It proposes Connective Tissue as an enabling layer between independently functioning systems and networks.
The report brings MOMO, Connective Tissue and platforms together under Maritime Digital Infrastructure (MDI). Its purpose is to allow multiple networks to coordinate while retaining their autonomy.
The report also cites Singapore’s Smart Port Challenge, which has attracted more than 170 maritime startups, with those companies raising more than S$130 million and deploying more than 130 technology solutions.
Digital transformation may deliver limited results when each system improves an isolated workflow. The larger opportunity lies in making information and physical activity work together across the wider operational network.
