One of the main reasons for the introduction of the ViscoMaster fuel heater control viscometer was so that MAK could log real time fuel quality data. The conventional viscometers, apart from being very expensive to maintain and often dirty or needing maintenance, only reported dynamic viscosity and so could only control the fuel heaters.
The ViscoMaster reports:
density, density at 15C, density at 98C (Centrifuge operating temperature), kinematic viscosity, kinematic viscosity at 50C or 100C, CCAI and CII.
In other words, what people said they were burning often wasn't what they were burning.
During trials of the Viscomaster one consignment of fuel arrived that had so much water in it (replacing the fuel the driver of the tanker had presumably sold off on route) that "you can take a shower in it".
ALso fuels have been dumping grounds for used motor oil and used dry cleaning fluids, and inadvertently contaminated with tank cleaning chemicals etc.
There are no end of scams and errors that mean fuel quality is far from what it should be.
So when the oil record shows ISO 8217 compliant 380cst fuel used and refers to a sample and a certificate of quality, as often as not the sample and certificate describe a fuel the engine never saw.
So MAK log the data to the engine's "black box recorder" because this gives them a handle on why some engines need more maintenance than others.
Wartsila talk aout the next step which is parameter based enginer management. That is, improving performance (and maintenance issues) by monitoring various fuel and operating parameters and intelligently managing the engine.
Incidentally, heavy fuel engines have undergone a significant transition over recent years with a great many innovations including such things as common rail injection etc. and deliver more power per cylinder with longer time between service intervals.
Any reported maintenance costs would be general and probably useless unless they can take into account a great manyy different factors. IT may be that you need data specific to your engine type and year of manufacture.
JMW