Carnival opens largest operations centre in cruise industry

Carnival Cruise Line has inaugurated its new Fleet Operations Center (FOC) in Miami, Florida, US.

Designed in collaboration with Constant Technologies, the 35,000-square-foot facility is the first of its kind in South Florida and features a tracking and data-analysis platform that enables real-time information sharing between Carnival ships and specialised shoreside teams. The FOC is designed to provide hands-on, around-the-clock monitoring and support for the line’s 26 cruise ships.

Carnival opened the facility during a ribbon-cutting ceremony that included an interactive demonstration of its most innovative high-tech features. Guests were shown a74-foot-long video wall comprising 57 LED screens, which display the status of all ships, including updates about the weather, itinerary, safety, engines and environment. The screens will also show the status of ports, ships logistics, guest operations and more.

This will allow the FOC team to provide support for technical, nautical, port, guest, environmental, occupational safety operations, as well as other key areas.

“In designing the FOC, we combined best practices from the military, government and industry to achieve a generational leap in facility design, sophisticated technology and utilisation, creating the largest and most advanced fleet operations centre in the industry,” said Christine Duffy, president of Carnival Cruise Line. “Nothing is more important than the safety of our guests and crew, and this new facility enhances our already comprehensive approach to safety and operational excellence.”

Carnival built custom tools for integration into the FOC, including the proprietary software applications ‘Neptune’ and ‘Argos.’

Developed in-house, Argos is an always-awake knowledge management tool that uses information from thousands of data points and overlays rules-based decision making, predictive alerting and queuing into one visual dashboard. This means that FOC staff can instantly gain situational awareness across the fleet, which significantly improves communication from ship to shore, enhances safe passage of ships, improves operational efficiencies and supports overall environmental initiatives.

Neptune captures and provides analytics for dozens of distinct parameters for navigational safety from each ship.

“The FOC brings together real-time information for decision making,” said Gus Antorcha, chief operating officer at Carnival Cruise Line. “Integrated shoreside teams support our shipboard officers to act quickly and decisively while significantly increasing the operational efficiency of our ships.”

The new Miami facility is the third in Carnival Corporation’s global FOC network – the others are in Seattle, Washington, and Hamburg, Germany. While the new location primarily is dedicated to Carnival Cruise Line, it can be used to monitor all 103 ships in parent company Carnival Corporation’s nine brands if necessary.