ABS Unites Its Digital Services Under a Single Brand and a New Leader

ABS' two digital services for shipowners have been united under new management and a new, fresh brand. 

ABS Nautical Systems, a division of consultancy ABS Group, has provided vessel management software to the industry for more than 30 years. It's a package of administrative tools used by countless owners and shipmanagers around the globe. 

The software-as-a-service platform My Digital Fleet - historically housed under class society ABS - offers a different portfolio of systems for leveraging ship data to analyze performance. It interfaces with Nautical Systems, but it stands on its own as a separate product. 

Going forward, the two will be unified under a single brand, ABS Wavesight.

"ABS Wavesight stands well above other maritime software companies by uniting the expansive offerings of Nautical Systems and the innovative performance and compliance tools of My Digital Fleet into one powerful new SaaS business," said Christopher J. Wiernicki, ABS Chairman, President, and CEO. "ABS Wavesight complements ABS’ core classification services and is an important part of our overall enterprise strategy to support our clients."

The new brand is helmed by a tech veteran, Paul Sells, who joined ABS in January as global head of digital solutions. Before his arrival, he headed up sales for two Silicon Valley companies in the industrial augmented-reality space. But Sells is deeply familiar with maritime: he started his career in the Navy, and he spent nine years at Huntington Ingalls as a manager of manufacturing engineering. 

Under the new Wavesight brand, the familiar Nautical Systems and My Digital Fleet platforms will still be available to existing customers as-is, according to Sells. But there will be new options too: ABS is developing APIs for these systems so that owners can integrate Wavesight into their own software tools - and with the tools of other developers, like weather-sensing company Sofar Ocean and maritime technology giant Kongsberg. 

Shipowners with ABS-classed vessels will benefit from Wavesight's integration with ABS inspection and classification, but the new brand is a standalone unit to serve any vessel, Sells says - regardless of which IACS member is handling its class. 

"Our vision is provide our clients with integrated solutions instead of fragmented vendor offerings; open APIs instead of walled gardens; and easy integration and maintenance instead of costly upgrades every few years," says Sells.