General info on the DP market and purchasing decisions

[Arthur]

Good Morning everyone,

I'm a French student making research about the DP market.
I was wondering if you have any role and how you might influence the bying process?
Does the operator have anything to say in the choice of the system?

I founded a french firm who's offering DP system, Sirehna, as any of you heard of it (and if so how)? Used it?

This is one of my finals projects and will help me graduate so any information is valuable for me, and if you have any other tips (website, forum,...) to get more I'll take them ;-)

Thanks a lot for your help.

Arthur

[Capt. Lee]

As far as I am concerned there is only one type of DP system....KONGSBERG.

[anchorman]

Originally Posted by Capt. Lee

As far as I am concerned there is only one type of DP system....KONGSBERG.

That may be because you've only operated Kongsberg. The most impressive DP system that I have seen is the new Rolls Royce system. Being late to join the DP market, Rolls Royce went all out with 3D rendering and graphics, and the impressive sub-menues when paired with the X3 thruster control system. Cannot say enough good things about this system. http://www.rolls-royce.com/Images/01...cm92-12983.pdf

MT is a very nice system as well - very good reviews in the Gulf and North Sea. There is a ongoing debate on the Norwegian Forums, but the real strength with this system is the real time 24 hour/day support via C-Comm. All of the programmers for MT came from Kongsberg, so the systems are very similar. I would say that comparing the MT and Kongsberg side by side - I would give Kongsberg the edge on versatility, but MT the edge on user friendly for the novice and ability to upgrade more often (this is the most evolving system for the end user)

Nautronix is a pretty good system as well. It's been a few years since operating one - but very limited, I believe is was the 4000 series. Just as good as any out there.

If there was a choice between DP systems, honestly, I would rather have the choice on type and style of the reference systems and I would be happy with most any DP system.

[richard8000milesaway]

I have worked a lot on KONGSBERG but also have enjoyed my 2 years working on CONVERTEAM DP systems.
ditto anchorman's last paragraph.

[cmjeff]

Originally Posted by Arthur

Good Morning everyone,

I'm a French student making research about the DP market.
I was wondering if you have any role and how you might influence the bying process?
Does the operator have anything to say in the choice of the system?

Well in the company I work for, which is one of the largest buyers of DP systems worldwide, here is how it goes down...

New ships are rarely a complete new design. Rather they are usually based on the drawings of a similar ship. What usually happens is the company engineers, marine superintendent and other office types sit down and review the drawings of the ship they'd like to base the new one off of. Then they send out an email to the Captain's aboard existing ships saying something like "We have no plans of building a new ship, but if we did what changes would you like to be made. They then alter equipment that no one likes/wants and put in the budget xx dollars for changes. " They then take these recommendations to the yard when signing the contract.

Once it is announced theire is sometimes a general "Captain's Meeting" where this stuff is hashed out in a forum of captain's and office engineers.

Once the ship is announced a vessel manager, captain and engineering type are picked for the ship. They get to suggest and review each decision to change equipment but, depending on the budget, may or may not get what they want.

Rarely does the actual operators get a say in the decision (unless the Captain asks for their input).

As for as changing systems on older ships.... the same round table of people sit down with the Captain and pick the new equipment to be installed. In this case the operators do have an active role in the decision making process but the budgets and existing interface equipment usually limit the choices.


That is officially how it goes down. The other way is some who needs to make a decision in the office doesn't want to... so he emails a DPO friend who operates the equipment and says "I have to choose between system x, y and z. Which one should we pick. Then the recommendation gets finalized and, that's that".

[domer]

There are 2 types of maritime companies. The good companies and the cheap idiots. All good companies I've worked for have asked AND LISTENED TO the opinion of the people actually operating the equipment (aka, the people in this forum). The other companies go with the lowest bidder regardless of whether it is the best choice.

All shipping companies of any size fit into one of these 2 groups, I assure you.

[Arthur]

Originally Posted by anchorman

MT is a very nice system as well - very good reviews in the Gulf and North Sea. There is a ongoing debate on the Norwegian Forums, but the real strength with this system is the real time 24 hour/day support via C-Comm.

Thanks a lot for your answer, concerning this 24/7 support, how does it works?Is it included in the scope of supply?Do they give you a phone? Once again i'm not familiar with any of this so i might ask silly question

[anchorman]

Originally Posted by Arthur

Thanks a lot for your answer, concerning this 24/7 support, how does it works?Is it included in the scope of supply?Do they give you a phone? Once again i'm not familiar with any of this so i might ask silly question

There is a Vsat link called C-Comm and bandwidth can be allocated as needed depending on the problem. If you need any support, upgrades, or troubleshooting, the DP system can be interfaced by the actual programmers in two ways. They can even rescale voltage for thrusters that may have needed mechanical work.
First, they can always go through your system and look at about anything that they want, actually anything interfaced with the entire IBS system - not just DP. Even alarm history that you may think is not in the buffer is still there on a solid-state harddrive.
Second, actual download and changes to the system require vessel permission, which means you have to turn an access key. For the key to work, you have to be out of full DP. This is a class requirement, so there are some real-time limitations while in DP.