Hull Intelligence: How Orion Redefined Fleet Performance with Toqua’s AI
Orion Reederei is a forward-looking shipowner committed to efficient, reliable, and sustainable maritime operations.
Toqua is a maritime AI company helping shipping put vessel data to work to reduce consumption and increase earnings.
Together, Orion and Toqua are demonstrating how Hull Intelligence — a new, AI-powered approach to hull performance management — is raising the bar for modern shipping.
Leveraging AI & big data to improve hull performance management
Since 2020, Toqua has developed proprietary physics-informed AI models for vessel performance. These next-generation models take a huge leap forward compared to traditional design-based approaches by tapping into the large amounts of operational data that vessels collect today, such as noon reports and high-frequency data. Leveraging these large amounts of data, using physically sound AI, allows for the creation of highly accurate, highly flexible, and dynamic models that open up new possibilities for shipping.
Managing Hull Performance is a key area to benefit from this technology.
Orion is leading the way by putting this into practice.
Why Hull Performance Is Hard to Get Right
Hull performance has long been difficult to manage effectively. The reasons are well known:
- Poor data quality makes analysis inconsistent
- Filtered approaches oversimplify and often ignore critical secondary factors
- Lack of context (e.g. cleaning dates, paint type, idling details) limits interpretability
- Too much noise leads to either alert fatigue or missed intervention windows
Traditional systems often offer “monitoring,” but stop short of turning insight into action. Orion wanted more — a system that reliably tells you the right thing, at the right time.
From Monitoring to Hull Intelligence
Toqua’s Ship Kernels™ have enabled Orion to transition from reactive monitoring to proactive, intelligent decision-making by combining four key capabilities:
- Automated Data Quality Management guarantees that only correct data is used within the analysis
- Physics-Informed AI normalizes for the noise of secondary factors while covering all operating conditions with extraordinary accuracy
- Contextualizing results within the broader context of historical cleanings, paint types, and idling details, allows for a meaningful interpretation of the output
- Intelligent alerting ensures profitable opportunities are seized, while reducing information overload and time spent
Together, these capabilities form Hull Intelligence: a smarter, AI-enabled framework for managing hull performance with precision. Beyond enabling timely, high-impact operational decisions — such as when and where to clean — it also lays the groundwork for long-term strategic insights. Shipowners can systematically compare and contrast paint system effectiveness across vessels, assess the ROI of different long-term cleaning strategies by vessel type and trade, and monitor cleaning provider performance over time. In essence, Hull Intelligence becomes not just a day-to-day decision tool, but a long-term asset for continuous improvement and competitive advantage.
“Toqua’s models help us eliminate uncertainty when evaluating ships’ performance in day-to-day operations. We can now make faster, more accurate, and better-informed decisions.”
Results
While the solution is currently being expanded fleetwide, early results have been highly encouraging. Orion is already observing:
- Average hull performance savings estimated at ~1.5%, with strong potential upside
- More confident cleaning decisions, based on ROI modeling rather than gut feel
- Improved internal coordination between technical managers and operators
- Time savings through reduced manual data analysis and reporting
“Toqua isn’t just a valuable tool on its own—it amplifies the capabilities of many other solutions we already use through its API. It fits seamlessly into our operations.”