Chemgas Shipping

Chemgas, the pioneer in transporting liquid gases over inland waterways and sea is modernizing their fleet’s onboard communication system with Peplink. Chemgas has been serving major petrochemical providers since 1960 with operations in western Europe and the North Sea and are the leader in the industry.

Peplink equipment is easy to configure. Compared to our previous solution, the MAX BR1 IP55 is a great improvement in that it has a much better 3G connection. All our vessels are now equipped with Peplink devices and we can’t be happier.”

Frans Mandersloot, Project Manager. Chemgas Shipping B.V.
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Challenges

Chemgas has always struggled with connectivity on their vessels. The cellular signal they were getting was weak and the system, not easy to configure in the first place. Owing to the increasing importance of connectivity out at sea, they had to look for a more intuitive and robust system that’s easy to setup and will provide connection failover.

Each Chemgas vessel has multiple workstations on board but only one is equipped with a SIM card to access the Internet.

Previously crew members would have to queue up in order to update their route information and communicate with head office. The inability for crew members to work simultaneously meant work was not being done efficiently and updates were not being sent and received in a timely manner. As part of their plan to renew all their workstations, they decided to reconsider their communications system as well.

Solution

A MAX BR1 IP55 was fitted with a SIM card and an AP One AC Mini connected via Ethernet extends the Wi-Fi signal to cover the vessel. This setup allows for multiple workstations to be connected to the network and the crew can now work simultaneously, greatly improving productivity. The MAX BR1 is flexible- when fitted with a 3G SIM card, it provides connectivity for inland vessels. For sea-going vessels, connection reliability is raised to another level. The MAX BR1 is set to use VSAT as the primary WAN connection and 3G for automatic failover.

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“With InControl 2, we were able to keep a close eye on the installation process. The remote web admin access feature was very useful for fine-tuning network configurations.”

Remco van den Heuvel, SL2A.
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Result

Having seen the improvements in productivity and connection reliability, Chemgas has decided to equip all 40 of their vessels with the same setup, keeping the entire fleet in line with the digital age.

Deployment

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