seatec - Finnish marine technology review 2/2014 | Page 21

the sense that Metso has a long track record of supplying automation technologies to Royal Caribbean International’s cruise vessels over the years. Furthermore, the world’s largest cruise ship sets high requirements on the automation system, as it will control and monitor the electric power plant, air conditioning and swimming pools, among others, around the clock. Heikki Tanner from Metso points out that automation systems are “the integrator” of machinery systems functionalities onboard, ensuring the complete monitoring and control picture. “With more than 7 500 people on board, the reliability and availability of the automation system is, in this respect, of outmost importance. Availability 24/7 year-round is simply a must, ensuring passenger and crew comfort and safety. As a consequence, the system is designed with redundancy for all major components,” says Tanner. GIANT CHALLENGE The pure scale of the Oasis 3 vessel is also demanding when it comes to design and engineering. The system is very distributed with processing and input /output units spread in many locations. “This means that the system network and location of components have to be planned with different safety related scenarios in mind, securing maximum availability,” adds Tanner. The Information Management System onboard will also be an exceptional one. This system includes versatile and advanced tools for analysis of machinery performance based on history data, says Tanner. “The system has a large data collection capacity, and is able to store all 32 000 signals into its database for up to a year. One of the tools is a history replay function on the system workstations where the operators can replay situations and incidents that happened in the past.” EYE ON ENERGY Metso’s Energy Management System will also be installed onboard, since RCI is a seatec 2/2014 19