New products and systems to improve the safety, environmental friendliness and competitiveness
The Flagship European maritime transport project, part-financed through the EU, has now concluded. The project has facilitated R&D for some 10 new products from a number of European companies.
All the new products and systems are said to improve the safety, environmental friendliness and competitiveness of European maritime transport – precisely the objective of Flagship.
The project was divided into sub projects led by various businesses from around Europe. Flagship-TCI led by Marintek in Norway was concerned with creating Key Performance Indicators and Technical Condition Indices to enable fleet managers to compare performance of vessels. This has led to the development of a commercial product by DNV, called Top Monitoring, which monitors main engines. Commercial products monitoring auxiliary engines are expected to be launched later this year from Flagship partners Danaos and Wärtsilä.
In the UK BMT led a sub project called Flagship-HCA which addressed the process of surveys and dry-dock repairs. This resulted in Germanischer Lloyd introducing a new commercial tool called Hull Manager. GL also led a project called Flagship-EEM which focused on energy savings during sailing which has resulted in a patent being secured to cover a new process of measuring and giving a direct insight in power consumption during operations, with commercial products planned for 2011.
The Flagship-Bridge Support project led by SAM Electronics in Germany has given integrated bridge systems advanced functions for further integration of nautical information, which are being launched on to the market. Alarm Filtering was addressed by the Flagship-iCAS sub project led by Kongsberg in Norway, dealing with the problem of large cascades of alarms, a commercial version of which is available.
Norway-based Autronica led Flagship-ISEMS which dealt with safety condition monitoring, damage and prevention assessment, as well as ship to shore communication, resulting in the Autromaster ISEMS system, installed on large cruise vessels.
Further Flagship projects dealt with subjects such as real time container scheduling and the determination of an Index of Vulnerability. Herman de Meester, coordinator of Flagship commented: “The adoption of specific learning into new products for the advancement of the industry is exactly what EU projects such as Flagship are all about and are to be welcomed and encouraged. This is another example of the maritime industry working hard to meet and exceed performance standards.”
Source: Flagship
