The DOGA Award rewarded to Ulstein’s Marine Automation Systems based on X-CONNECT®

The jury stated: "It is impressive to have created such an easy and intuitive system for something as complex as a modern supply ship. There are extreme amounts of information to be presented correctly in the form of good interactions and visual means, and errors can have fatal consequences. Here, EGGS Design show their strategic and design strengths. To mention an example: the alarm star makes it possible to understand the ship's alarm situation through pattern recognition, which is a very good solution. This is a world-class software application in its genre, purchased by a customer that repeatedly shows their will and ability to pioneer with design to create new market possibilities."

Excellent feedback

Gunnar Gjersdal, who is managing director in Ulstein Blue Ctrl, says that the company has received excellent feedback on their automation system.

"As the amounts of sensors, actuators and information available on the vessel increases rapidly, the control systems have to be designed accordingly and provide the information to the end users in an efficient manner. During the design phase the end user of the data may not be decided yet, and the system integrator can provide the capability of transferring data between control systems and remotely to shore. This is the key enabler for realizing our new ship automation systems, based on ULSTEIN X-CONNECT," he says.

"New technologies can radically improve the efficiency of how a ship is operated. The future is about embracing these possibilities, developing products for safer and more efficient operations. This is at the core of product and system development in Ulstein. With our effort on offering products and systems that utilize digital possibilities, you can offer ship intelligence that makes your business smarter, safer and greener."

Ulstein and EGGS started by rethinking the user interfaces for Ulstein's marine automation solution and aimed to create a new foundation for their full range of maritime applications based on ULSTEIN X-CONNECT.

The joint development has been based on the parties' understanding of maritime conventions, constraints and technical feasibility - along with thorough user insight. With this project, they also wanted to challenge the established industry conventions to achieve even greater technological advancements.

This resulted in several innovative concepts:

• Simplified alert handling: provides improved awareness and effective alert handling
• The alert star: understand complex alert situations and analyse patterns over time
• The mega menu: one-click access to all content, also displaying aggregated status from all mimics
• The new trend plots: provides a rich tool to monitor, compare and explore any set of values over time
• The control dialogue: provides simple in-context automation

Achieving excellence

To achieve great results, a close collaboration between designers and marine technologists was required. Throughout the project, EGGS and Ulstein's own engineers worked together, alongside highly skilled programmers from Ulstein's development partners The QT company and DataRespons. Thus, the implementation was without compromise on neither the control system back-end, nor the details of the front-end user experiences.

Also a nominee for the DOGA Honour Award

Of all the 290 applicants for the DOGA Award, six were also chosen to be nominees for the DOGA Honour Award, one of these being ULSTEIN and their automation system.