Splunk has impressed us with its exceptional flexibility and data processing capabilities. It helps us bridge the electronic system and MIS and provide deep insight into the data, giving us confidence to have a strong foundation between systems. The result is to achieve real efficiency in our daily operations.
Hong Kong’s Vessel Traffic Center Gains Real-Time Port Operations Visibility
The Marine Department (MD) plays a vital role in achieving safe port operation within Hong Kong waters.
MD provides vessel traffic services through its Vessel Traffic Center (VTC). Previously, VTC relied on operators juggling between an electronic system, MIS and paper records to track vessels and monitor traffic. Since the Splunk Enterprise analytics platform came into play in 2016, MD has seen unprecedented benefits including:
- Boosted business efficiency due to automated vessel tracking reduced from tens of minutes to seconds
- Facilitated operation due to real-time, end-to-end visibility into the marine traffic
- Enhanced public image due to improved navigation safety and traffic efficiency
Challenges
- Labor-intensive manual workflow for vessel tracking
- Error-prone data processing
- Potential delays and incomplete data analysis in traffic monitoring
Business Impact
- Optimized operation with boosted vessel tracking accuracy with real-time, end-to-end visibility
- Enhanced business efficiency with accelerated vessel tracking under a fully automated operation
- Reinforced corporate responsibility due to increased eco-friendliness through paperless operation
- Improved public image and reputation due to proven excellence in marine services with improved safety and efficiency
- New business opportunities with cross-region marine service collaboration achieved by flexible data sharing
Why Splunk
Hong Kong waters is divided into four sectors for monitoring by individual operators. In the past, while focusing on marine traffic on radar displays and via other electronic systems, operators also had to manually input vessel activity records and search through piles of paper to retrieve data and then pass the relevant documents to the next operator when vessels moved across sectors. To go the extra mile in operational accuracy, efficiency and support future growth, MD decided to revamp the whole system.
Splunk Enterprise turned out to be an ideal solution, not only fulfilling all functional requirements, but also flexibly accepting data in different formats and means. With Splunk Enterprise, MD has created one of the world’s first fully automatic vessel tracking systems, according to Gordon Yuen, information technology manager, Marine Department of the Hong Kong Government.
