In this episode of Tech Talks, Ian Richardson is joined by Michelle Potorski, President of Procell InSite, to explore the transformative power of predictive battery management in the cruise industry.

Discover how proactive device management prevents disruptions like door lock failures, enhances guest satisfaction, and streamlines operations with real-time maintenance alerts.

Learn how this innovative solution also supports sustainability goals by reducing waste and labor inefficiencies. Tune in to find out how intelligent power solutions are paving the way for a greener, more seamless future in cruise operations.

Find out more about Procell Insite here: Procell InSite | Procell

>> Ian Richardson: Hi, everyone, and welcome to this edition of

Seatrade Cruise Tech Talks, which is all about

predictive power management. In

this episode, we'll be discussing how predictive power management

can enhance not only operational efficiency,

but also guest satisfaction. I'm Ian

Richardson, CEO and co founder of the ICEway and

Seatrade Cruise Global's technology ambassador. And I'm joined

by Michelle Potorski, VP and general

manager of Duracell. Profess.

Welcome, Michelle.

>> Michelle Potorski: Thank you so much. I'm very happy to be here.

>> Ian Richardson: Yeah, it's great having you with us. So. Well, why

don't we start by, maybe you can introduce yourself what your role

is at Duracell, and also tell us a little bit about

what we're going to be talking about today.

>> Michelle Potorski: Great. So my name is Michelle

Potorski. I work for

Duracell and I lead their professional

division which includes, Procell Batteries

and also Procell Insight, which we'll be

talking about today. So I've been with the company

for about seven years

and we had. I've been in this

role for two years and, you know, the company has a

really long legacy of providing

the best energy solutions and a great

history in battery management. Energy

management. And we really understand

battery operated devices inside and

out. And that has led us to our newest

innovation called Procell Insight.

>> Ian Richardson: Okay, sounds good.

Okay, well, maybe we can start with,

talking a little bit about some of the power

management challenges in Cruise.

What's the scope of the problem as you see it?

>> Michelle Potorski: Sure. So in Cruise there are

many, many battery operated devices. So

let's take, an average ship of

about 3,000 cabins, and we estimate

that there's over 40,000 batteries on board

powering those devices. So everything from the door

locks when you go into a room with a

touchless system, to the safes where you might put your

valuables to hand

sanitizers and soap dispensers, paper

towel dispensers, anything in a touchless bathroom.

Those all take batteries. And what

we noted is that there's really

no good way to monitor those batteries and understand when

they need to be changed. So it leads to

usually two behaviors. One is that

the, staff, the operations staff, may change them on a

schedule, which allows

them to avoid any concerns from a

customer experience standpoint. But in that

situation, they're throwing away batteries which have maybe

sometimes as much as 70% of the life left in

them. So they're doing this on a schedule, they're spending

labor and they're spending money on batteries that they may not need

to change out yet. But if they don't do that, they

risk going too long and the battery dying

and the device not working. And that could

cause a very bad customer experience.

>> Ian Richardson: Right, yeah. So it's really getting that

balance right between guest satisfaction and operational

efficiency.

>> Michelle Potorski: Exactly, exactly. They want to make sure that you do

everything that you can to avoid a negative customer experience

in some situations. What could happen if the battery,

for instance, in the door to the

cabin was out, it means they couldn't get into the

room, couldn't get into their, you know, reach their

belongings. And they may be sitting outside their room

for up to 45 minutes or even longer while the

operations staff comes in and gets them access to that room

again. So it's possibly a very

negative experience. So they really want to do everything that they can to

avoid that. But then on the flip side, right now there's a lot of

guesswork involved in it, and it really leads

to not operating as efficiently as

possible, both from a, you know, a scheduling and staffing

standpoint, from the operations team, and then

also just a cost standpoint, M and spending dollars

on batteries that didn't need to be changed out

yet.

>> Ian Richardson: Okay, so tell us about, Procell Insight.

what exactly is it and, what are the benefits?

>> Michelle Potorski: Absolutely. So Procell Insight

is a wireless device management

system. And the way it works, it's a very

simple retrofit which makes every battery

operated devices, even a data device, it makes it

a smart device. So it connects them

and in real time monitors the device

and sends information back to a centralized

dashboard. So at any given time,

you'll know every battery all across the

ship when it needs to be changed. So where it is, it

gauges, it shows battery gauging. So it shows exactly

where the battery is in its usable life.

And it proactively sends a flag when the battery,

when it's getting dangerously low and the battery needs to be

changed out. So again,

what it does, it provides an opportunity to

address and protect guest satisfaction.

So you could, you know, again, if that

guest has a bad experience that they're locked out of their room,

they could. We know that over 40% of guests, when they have a

negative experience, they post about it, they tell

people, and one bad review could

lead to 30 lost bookings. So this can

translates into quite a bit of lost revenue.

And you want to do everything you can to avoid that. So it

protects guest satisfaction, it increases

operational efficiency. So as we were talking about

earlier, the, the time and labor that it takes to

go around and do these frequent battery checks and

change out the battery on a schedule. This

is very cumbersome. And cruise line spends over

$100,000 in annual hours

fleet wide replacing batteries. So it is a

significant drain on labor and it

is something that could be much, much more efficient.

And then lastly, it's better from a sustainability

perspective because you know, many cruise lines are

making commitments to reduce waste and adopt

more eco friendly practices and

optimizing battery replacement really helps to

meet those sustainability goals and it also improves brand

perception among those eco conscious travelers.

So just think about the unnecessary waste

that proactive battery replacement is causing

and it creates a situation when there's more batteries

in the landfill fills this larger carbon

footprint and it really just increased waste. A

typical cruise ship, you know, 40,000

batteries on board generates tons of waste by

discarding them with again sometimes up to

70% of the battery power still

unused. So this is a, ah, this

is a really great opportunity to reduce

the number of batteries that are thrown out unnecessarily

and really meet those sustainability goals.

>> Ian Richardson: Sounds great.

Now listeners to this podcast will already

know about the cruise environment.

It presenting quite unique challenges. Can you

explain a little bit about how the product, how you've adapted

the product for cruise ships specifically?

>> Michelle Potorski: So we have created Procell

Insights. It's a wireless device management

solution and as we thought about

its applicability on cruise lines, we said this is

really the perfect environment because

there's so many devices and

such a high demand on cruise ships. So there's a high

drain on these devices and it's so important

to get it right. So what we've done, we've created,

we've enhanced the functionality

so it provides

predictive alerts again when those door lock batteries need to

be replaced or other devices. So it

ensures that because they take away the risk

of the battery failing prematurely, it

protects that guest experience, ensures the guests can always have

access to their cabins and always have the best user

experience. We've also

created a situation where the dashboard, again it

can be centrally reviewed at any time. These different

customized views depending if you're looking at one ship, if you're

looking at a fleet of ships, but it is created

so it's very simple, it's intuitive and it

can alert the operations team when the batteries need to

be replaced. It can also give them a sense of how

battery operated devices are performing so there's an

outage on the device that will flag that as well.

And then lastly, from a sustainability standpoint,

we not only have less Batteries, because they're

changing them less often. And by the way, we started with the

Procell battery being one of the longest lasting

batteries. So that was our first step. And then with

Procell Insight, it actually makes sure that you can use the battery

to the furthest possible extent and usable life of that

battery. And then we also for cruise

line, a recycling program. So we have a very

simple battery collection. It's a simple bin

that we take when the turnaround happens for

the cruise lines and for the ships. And it's a

very seamless way for us to take the battery and then

recycle that battery in kind of a very closed loop

recycling process. And this

is an excellent solution for cruise line.

It really makes it a seamless

experience overall.

>> Ian Richardson: Okay, yeah, I was going to talk a little bit about, the

sustainability story of it, so maybe you can

elaborate a little bit about that. You talked about the closed loop

battery collection and recycling. How does that, work?

>> Michelle Potorski: Okay, so from a sustainability standpoint,

first thing that we do is create the longest lasting battery.

And then with Procell Insight, we're able to use the

batteries to the full extent of its life. And

then with the recycling program, we're able to take the product

back, bring it back and extract

the usable materials. So we re filter that back

into our production process. It's a very

streamlined process and it helps us

maximize the impact of the battery, it

helps us use the materials to the greatest

extent and it helps the

cruise lines and our partners meet their

sustainability goals overall.

>> Ian Richardson: That sounds great. I mean, and the alternative, I assume,

is a lot of these batteries go into landfill or

they're just sort of lesser efficient

recycling, pathways.

>> Michelle Potorski: Absolutely. To go into landfills. And what

we know, again in an average cruise line,

this Insight program can help reduce waste

by tens of thousands of pounds annually,

which considerably contributes to their

sustainability goals. So it really makes a big impact.

>> Ian Richardson: Fantastic.

So looking ahead, maybe you can tell us a little bit about what

your vision or what Procell's vision for

2025 is and beyond.

>> Michelle Potorski: We have a very, I would say, innovative

approach to battery management and device

management. We believe that intelligent power

solutions will further improve as

IoT and battery technology advances

and we will continue to

evolve with that. So we see a world where

innovation like Procell insights really

help to enhance the guest experience overall,

enhance operational efficiency and enhanced

sustainability. And as the technology

evolves, our vision for how we evolve with

it is very advanced. The sensors that

we place the retrofit for personal

insight, it gives us a tremendous amount

of access to data. And data

is so important to our cruise line

partners because it gives them insights on how to

be more operationally efficient, how to even get

ahead of the curve from a, sustainability

standpoint, but also how to further delight the

guests and how to further increase that guest experience

and enhance the guest experience. There's so

much they can learn from the data that we're able to collect through

these sensors. So not only battery gauging,

but things like heat maps and

understanding usage patterns of different devices

in different parts of the ship. It

really can be quite eye opening and mind

opening. So we want to continue to be there

to help drive that kind of efficiency

and also to help them really further

elevate that guest experience.

We also really want to continue

to collaborate with the industry to

meet their goals. So we have had a rich collaboration with

CLIA and we will continue to do that to

understand how we can

further innovate to meet the goals of our

partners. We want to make sure that we listen

and we share our vision of a

purely, fully predictive

ecosystem for these very

sustainability conscious cruise operations.

So we are actively working with a number of

cruise lines on this vision and our

installation plans for Insight as the first step.

But really the future is so

rich for what we can then do together.

>> Ian Richardson: That sounds fascinating.

so, ah, do you have any final thoughts of what you'd like our listeners to

take away in understanding Procell?

>> Michelle Potorski: So Procell Insight is an

exciting innovation which is really focused on

elevating the guest experience, enhancing guest

satisfaction, driving operational

efficiency and also sustainability.

And Procell is fully

committed to leading the power technology

that supports the cruise industry's unique

needs. I would also

encourage listeners to reach out to Procell

or visit Procell Insight. The

website is

www.procell.com

insight to learn more about this

innovation and I also invite industry

stakeholders to explore pilot programs,

partnerships and all the content that we

have on the site. But also reach out to us and

we can help further demonstrate insight's impact

specifically for you.

>> Ian Richardson: fantastic. So if our listeners feel

Inspired after today's TechTalk, they can reach out

to Procell or visit the website and learn

more all about Procell Insight and what it's doing for the

industry. All that's left to do now really is just to.

Thank you Michelle. It's been a really fascinating discussion. I've really

enjoyed learning more about Procell Insight. I'm

sure our listeners have too. So thanks very much.

>> Michelle Potorski: Thank you very much. I really appreciate the opportunity

and it was an excellent experience. Thank you.

>> Ian Richardson: Great. Thanks. Michelle.

Thanks for joining me on this episode of Tech Talks from the

ICEway and Seatrade Cruise. I hope you took

something from it and I very much look forward to seeing you next time.