M²cell Case Study

4.2 Implications of m²cell approach
M²cell can be considered a example of radical and architectural innovation within a system. Consequences of such development can often be far reaching, complex and unexpected influences on the industry. (Schilling, 2008)
With m²cell system there’s no inherent fixed passenger capacity of any particular ship. Therefore the ship’s utility subsystem must facilitate the maximum theoretical number of passengers. For instance HVAC and plumbing systems can quite easily be designed for the maximum capacity of passengers, with a control system to decrease their energy consumption when the ship’s capacity is lower, likely without much extra cost compared to current solutions, where they optimised for relatively dense and capacious cabin areas.
Evacuation systems, however, reserve a significant amount of high value real estate on embarkation decks, Therefore in the m²cell system the life boats have been placed into externally similar interchangeable modules, which allows for the unnecessary life boat capacity to be exchanged for profit generating facilities if the ships overall capacity is decreased, for instance by increasing the number of larger cabins.
In contrast the passenger capacity and cabin portfolio of a m²cell ship is dynamic, to some extent even per cruise basis. Ticket sales networks associated with m²cell ships will therefore have to integrate the information about what kind of the cassette portfolio is installed to each ship at any point of time. Conversely, as the m²cell system makes it possible to control the selection of cabin types based on the information provided by the sales – it’s possible to increase the number of a type of cabin that proves to be popular in a particular cruise type or