‘Ever Forward’ advance for autonomous operations on deep sea ships

Evergreen Marine Corp. Ltd. (Evergreen) has been awarded Digital Safe Security certification from Lloyd’s Register (LR) for its latest 12,000 TEU ultra large containership, Ever Forward, which was built and delivered by Samsung Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (SHI) on 28 September 2020.

SHI used its smart ship solution, SVESSEL, to develop the digital ship system onboard Ever Forward. This solution provides operators and shore-based staff with instant access to operating data from onboard systems for monitoring and diagnostics through the cloud, which they can use to make more informed operational decisions and respond to issues faster and more efficiently.

Ever Forward has been built to class in line with LR Digital Ship notations with elements of SVESSEL certified against LR’s Digital Safe Security notation, demonstrating that access for autonomous and remote monitoring of the ship’s systems has been provided and assessed.

LR also provided independent assurance services to Evergreen and SHI, applying the Digital Ship descriptive notation to the vessel in recognition of the work and certifying the digital ship system as safe.

Yong-Lae Shim, Vice President of SHI Ship and Offshore Research Institute, said: “We are delighted to support Evergreen with our latest smart ship solution, SVESSEL which has been developed with the advances in information and communication technologies aiming to complete digitalisation of a ship and its applications to efficiently and safely assist operation. We believe digital transformation will revolutionise the maritime transportation industry and drive economic value for all stakeholders including shipowners and operators.”

Young-Doo Kim, LR’s North East Asia TSO Manager, said: “By working closely with Evergreen and Samsung Heavy Industries, we were successful in assessing the system’s functionality through LR’s Digital Safety Security notation. We are excited to see digital ship technologies grow and comprise more and more functions and reach higher levels of autonomy, helped by LR’s Digital Ships procedures that enable digital systems to be installed safely and fully functional as intended.”