New Product: TruCare – Turbocharger Anomaly Detection and Predictive Maintenance-as-a-Service
Tru-Marine launches TruCare, designed to transform the technical management of marine turbocharger maintenance and repairs.
“TruCare is a disruptive digitization approach in managing asset maintenance onboard vessels in a completely different way," said James Loke, Group Chief Executive Officer, Tru-Marine. "More importantly, it is our response to the urgency of decarbonization imposed by world maritime and the Singapore government’s raised climate ambition to net zero by or around 2050.”
Designed for turbochargers onboard all ocean-going vessels, TruCare is the result of a strategic partnership between Tru-Marine, German turbocharger maker Kompressorenbau Bannewitz (KBB) and the Advanced Remanufacturing and Technology Center (ARTC), a research institute under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore.
TruCare is the brainchild of veteran turbocharger Maintenance, Repairs and Overhaul (MRO) specialist, Tru-Marine. This digital solution was developed through the A*STAR-Tru-Marine joint lab. To test the concept in the real world, Pacific International Lines (PIL) has been involved for the pilot of TruCare onboard four of its vessels.
“At PIL, we constantly explore innovative solutions to improve the technical and operational reliability of our fleet," said Goh Chung Hun, General Manager (Fleet), Fleet Division, PIL Singapore. "This collaboration with Tru-Marine and A*STAR to develop predictive maintenance technology aims to tackle maritime industry’s pain points. The ability to detect anomalies and defects in advance enables us to avoid costly breakdowns and downtime. Such cutting-edge and pragmatic solutions are important for the industry as we map the path to digital transformation.”
TruCare can be fitted onto running engines without mandatory modifications.
How it Works
Progressing from reactive maintenance, the PdMaaS solution aims to set new standards for the predictive maintenance of turbochargers, using IoT technologies (edge and cloud computing, machine learning and digital twin) in equipment performance monitoring and technical consultancy.
Key operational parameters will be transmitted from ship-to-shore into a command center for real-time data analysis, using machine learning algorithms and failure models to monitor turbocharger performance, predict failures and recommend maintenance windows.
By establishing correlations between turbocharger performance and engine parameters, the predictive ability of TruCare in detecting anomalies and complex indications for breakdowns helps pre-empt potential operating issues before there is a crisis.
TruCare detects the possibility of a fault and recommends service based on the actual operating conditions onboard, or whenever the need arises. TruCare differentiates on its capability in predicting the Optimal Time for Refurbishment / Overhaul of components, thus extending the fixed maintenance schedules – which as a result adhering to rigid service intervals has been rendered unnecessary.
This addresses the commonly occurring, premature turbocharger failures and associated high costs of emergency repairs, vessel downtime, off-hires and delayed port calls.