Korean Register (KR) held an internal AI Utilization Contest to proactively respond to the global trends of digital transformation and decarbonization in the maritime industry, while promoting technological innovation across the sector.

The contest was designed to discover creative and practical ideas from employees that leverage generative AI tools, with the goal of enhancing work efficiency and accelerating KR’s digital advancement.

A total of 35 ideas were submitted, and following a comprehensive document review and presentation evaluation, seven employees were selected as final awardees and received prizes in recognition of their outstanding performance.

The Grand Prize was awarded to KIM Sangyeob from the Ship & Offshore Technology Team for developing an automated DCS*/MRV** report data validation program. The program uses AI to automatically check the accuracy of DCS and MRV report data from ships, and when errors are detected, it generates a revision request report. This innovation is expected to significantly improve the efficiency and accuracy of verifying data from thousands of ships every year.
* DCS (Data Collection System): A system that records and reports ships’ annual fuel consumption, enabling the monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions.
** MRV (Monitoring, Reporting, Verification): An EU system for ships over 5,000 GT that monitors and verifies reported carbon emissions.

Excellence Awards went to KIM Daehwan from the Survey Team for developing an AI-based PSC (Port State Control) risk analysis and prediction program, and CHOI Yena from the Machinery Team for creating an AI-based automatic data classification platform.

The PSC risk prediction program uses AI to analyze inspection likelihood and risk levels of incoming vessels based on key focus areas in port state inspections. This enables ship operators to prepare in advance, reduce detention risks, and improve customer service quality.

Meanwhile, the automatic data classification platform utilizes AI to organize and categorize vast, dispersed datasets, enabling systematic management of various business databases. This dramatically reduces search time, facilitates knowledge sharing, and can be flexibly applied to different departments, offering broad usability.

KR positioned this contest as a flagship example of its AI Transformation (AX) initiative, sharing the results internally and holding a presentation attended by many staff to encourage employee-driven innovation throughout the organization.

Commenting on the initiative, KIM Daeheon, Executive Vice President of KR, who led the contest, said,
“Applying advanced technologies such as AI to make tangible improvements within the organization is key to advancing AI Transformation in the maritime industry. KR will continue to embrace employees’ creative ideas to further accelerate digital and green transformation across the sector.”