Technology for today, tomorrow and for life: W?rtsil?’s Lifecycle Solutions expertise

What makes a technology investment last? That’s the question that Joanna Marczyk and her colleagues in W?rtsil? Exhaust Treatment’s Lifecycle Services team help customers to answer every single day. Because while the decision to install a technology might be taken in just a few moments, and the installation process might take months, a typical commercial vessel will be expected to operate for 20 to 25 years from newbuild to recycling; creating a big challenge for technology OEMs.

“The bottom line for us is that it’s about knowledge”, says Joanna. “Knowledge about the client, knowledge about the vessel – and knowledge about how that vessel will operate. It’s not just enough to sell a technology in isolation. We have to think about how that technology will sit onboard in two decades, when the owner has potentially changed, and the vessel is doing very different things to today.”

She says that these are the principles that guide W?rtsil? Exhaust Treatment’s strong team of 70 Lifecycle Service professionals.

“In the rush for sulphur cap compliance in 2020, people were only thinking about there and then. But from the beginning we have always tried to steer our customers and partners to focus on the longer term. We know that a scrubber, or any technology we sell, is a considerable investment. We have to be committed to constantly updating and improving our solutions.”

As part of the company’s lifecycle solutions offering, Joanna explains that W?rtsil? continually explores the upgrades and updates that can be applied to the company’s installed technology base. “We’re serious about what we’re able to do even once the scrubber has been onboard for many years. It’s not just about maintenance, but also about ensuring a better system overtime as a result.”

And customers are responding positively to a longer-term technology focus. She explains that the Exhaust Treatment service business is currently growing by more than 30% year on year, and that regular maintenance programmes and predictable opex costs were driving customers’ decisions to invest in service agreements.

From a personal perspective, Joanna enjoys the balance between meeting customers and understanding the unique requirements of their vessels and operations. “It’s troubleshooting, but always remaining customer focused. I’m proud that we’re able to increase our impact over time, not just remain static.”

A large part of what Joanna and her colleagues do is focused on maintenance. This is important because of customer priorities, she says. “Ensuring uptime means saving money and ensuring compliance. Our scrubbers are an integral part of ship operation, so we need to be flexible and agree maintenance agreements that suit our customers’ needs.”

To that effect, a global industry requires W?rtsil? to maintain a global lifecycle service offering. “We have experts that we can deploy regionally and a presence in many key countries which enables us to rapidly respond to customer requirements, in line with what that vessel is doing at any given moment.”

On the topic of spare parts, Joanna explains that W?rtsil? is able to call on the extensive resources of the company’s warehouse in the Netherlands, which stores millions of parts across the company’s entire marine portfolio and is able to ship them globally at short notice, depending on customer requirements.

“We also focus on documentation and providing an ongoing source of support to crew onboard. Sometimes this might be as simple talking the crew through making an adjustment themselves, or even flicking a switch; we’re able to do a lot from shore without having to get onboard at all.”?

Gearing up for CCS

Meanwhile, beyond scrubbers, Joanna believes that W?rtsil? is well equipped to provide lifecycle solutions for the company’s carbon capture & storage (CCS) system when it hits the market in early 2025.

“The opportunity of CCS is extremely exciting for us in Lifecycle Services. I think we’re geared up very well to support our customers beyond our scrubber portfolio; this is a natural extension of what we do already. Our global network and ability to respond closely to customer needs makes me very confident that CCS systems will be an appealing avenue for customers to establish lifecycle agreements around.”?

And on what supporting customers to capture carbon onboard means to her personally, Joanna is emphatically clear. “I think that it’s brilliant that we’re so close to being able to make such a big impact on the industry’s CO2 emissions. We’re relishing the challenge of supporting this exciting new technology into the long-term, across a large part of the fleet, in partnership with our customers around the world.”