Nova Sea selects Xpert BI to improve fish health with data automation

After completing a successful pilot project together with BI Builders, Nova Sea has decided to continue the development of a modern data platform for reporting and analysis. The purpose of the pilot project was to investigate the potential of data-driven operations within aquaculture.  The ability to maintain historical data is among the most critical success factors for Nova Sea to generate health cards for their fish in the future.  

Who is Nova Sea? 
Based in Lovund, an island at the edge of the Norwegian Sea, Nova Sea AS is one of the largest producers of farmed salmon in Northern Norway, with 33.33 licenses for production of salmon. In addition, the company is part owner of 4 licenses. They have salmon farms along the entire coast of Helgeland. The group consists of Nova Sea AS, as well as the affiliated companies Tomma Laks AS and Vega Sjøfarm AS, with a total of approx. 350 employees. The group is fully integrated from broodstock production to serving salmon in restaurants.  
 
A user survey was carried out ahead of the project initiation phase. Here, several manual and time-consuming processes were uncovered. The biologists and veterinarians spent a lot of their time collecting and processing data. Time that should be used to further improve fish health. The scope of the project was defined, and the goal was to automate the data process so that they could spend more time focusing on their core competence which is fish health.  
  
Key deliverables
One of the project deliverables was an app, developed in Power Apps, for lice count input. Data from the lice count is sent directly to the database and the information is available to the relevant recipient without any key person dependencies. This has proven to significantly reduce both the time spent by personnel, and the number of personnel needed on the cage edge counting lice.
 
A digital salmon welfare form was also developed for use on wellboats. When the form is submitted by the captain, it will be available to the biologists and veterinarians immediately. Furthermore, relevant reports will be automatically updated. With the help of standardized procedures and automated controls, the risk of errors is reduced.  
 
The fish health is at the core of this project, and we have now taken a huge step to improve our work methods and data utilization. It means a lot."  says Geir Johan Birkeland, Head of IT  
  
The next step
The data platform is established in Azure. The next step for this project is to connect several important data sources to the data platform so that everyone in the organization can share one single source of truth for reporting and analysis. Furthermore, the data platform will also be used to share data with external data consumers, e.g., AquaCloud in a safe and controlled manner.
  
“Nova Sea chose Xpert BI for the flexibility and scalability of the solution. With Xpert BI you can start small and expand the data platform when needed. Automation allows us to keep our focus on business needs, rather than data and IT. In addition, BI Builders with their expertise in data platforms and reporting has provided us with valuable guidance during this project. I am sure that we have chosen the right solution and supplier!”  concludes Geir Johan Birkeland, Head of IT