The Netherlands: Imtech Marine, SHL Sign Support Contract for Second Crane Vessel

Imtech Marine’s Advanced Support Agreements, which include 24/7 remote Monitoring & Maintenance, are raising interest among ship owners. Recently, Seaway Heavy Lifting (SHL) signed a support contract for a second crane vessel. The Imtech Marine support agreement covers all of the systems onboard, including VSAT, computers, navigation and communication equipment.

The maritime transport and offshore construction services company has been a customer of Imtech Marine and Radio Holland for many years and in December 2011, SHL decided to place its crane vessel “Oleg Strashnov” under an Advanced Support Agreement. And just a few months later in April 2012, the company has decided to do the same for a second crane vessel, the “Stanislav Yudin”.

Peter Dekkers, Technical Superintendent at SHL, says: “After experiencing the benefits of Imtech Marine’s Advanced Support Agreements for several months on the Oleg Strashnov, we didn’t hesitate to place the Stanislav Yudin under the same arrangement.”

Remote maintenance

Frank Berends, Radio Holland Manager Technical Helpdesk, comments: “We are very happy that SHL has been completely satisfied with our support service and has chosen this for another vessel. We understand that it is vital that these very complex vessels should have the least downtime possible.”

“It is crucial for us to be able to do things remotely,” Mr Dekkers points out. He gives the example that Oleg Strashnov has recently been working in the Indian Ocean and it can take six weeks to get a permit for a service engineer to get onboard if there is a problem. “When the vessel went offshore, the crew discovered there were certain issues with the telephone system but Imtech Marine was able to carry out a remote repair, ensuring that we had the telephone lines in all of the right positions on the ship and that all the connections were there for ingoing and outgoing calls. But imagine if this had happened and we had to wait for an engineer to get a permit

It is very important that we avoid any vessel downtime – even for a few hours. Imtech Marine helps ensure that our vessels are available, doing their job 24/7 for our customers.”

24/7 global support

Imtech Marine has three dedicated Global Technical Assistance Centres in Rotterdam, Houston and Singapore, enabling it to give clients round the clock support. “By monitoring the systems 24 hours a day we can see if there is trouble with the Internet for instance, and restore connections before the crew even notices,” emphasises Mr Berends. “Basically no one can beat our response times. We are able to tackle the issues in real time, while the vessel is sailing.”

Preventive Maintenance

In another example, Imtech Marine can spot any rises in equipment temperatures. “When a working temperature is between 40-50 degrees Celsius, we can take action if we see it getting higher, thus preventing any problems before the equipment starts to fail. By monitoring, we can carry out preventive maintenance and avert mass failure of equipment or we can advise the crew to take action if we cannot repair it remotely. Then Imtech Marine can get the right spare parts and an engineer ready for the next port of call.”

Unrivalled response times

Jack-Up Barge is another company that has seen the benefits of such an Advanced Support Agreement. In a three-year agreement, signed in January, this contract also includes system management. “These barges are often working on offshore wind farms for many months so it is crucial that any problems can be sorted out remotely. But we also manage the company’s systems. For instance when there are crew changes and a new crew is boarding everything is set up ready for them, emails etc. so they don’t have to worry about changing all of the systems themselves.”

Mr Berends adds: “We know that it is vital for any downtime to be avoided and ultimately, these agreements help ensure the availability of the vessel, in turn lowering the Total Cost of Ownership.”