The union between Altus and SKM continues to yield good results for both companies. In October 2015, the two institutions established a partnership that encourages research, development and engineering focused on Systems Integration ( IPMS) for Supervision and Control of Propulsion, Auxiliary Machines, Breakdowns and Energy Management (PMS) of the electrical plant of military ships.
Despite being a younger company, SKM has a similar trajectory to Altus. The company is a great supporter of the development of national products and technologies that benefit the companies for which it offers services. Nicolau Sebastião, director of Planning, Control and New Business at the company, states that “the most important thing in this entire process is when you combine national development with national technology”. In other words, Altus offers the technology, while SKM implements it.
In addition to operating in the offshore market and industry in general in Rio de Janeiro, the company's main client is Brazilian Navy, which also uses equipment from France, England, Germany and the United States on its ships. Together with Altus, SKM seeks to unify this enormous variety of technologies with products developed in the national territory, ensuring technological independence from other countries.
Ongoing projects
After more than a year working on the Predictive Maintenance System project for the CBO Guanabara Ship, a Brazilian Offshore Company vessel, the company finalizes the development. The purpose of the system is to monitor vibration, temperature and the rotation of the ship's gearbox bearings, which allows data to be collected to evaluate the stage in which it is located “on-line”. the wear of the Reduction Boxes.
The solution analyzes this data and allows it to determine the wear and possible problems of the gearbox, in addition to determining the “useful life” stage of the bearings and misalignment or unbalance. Therefore, by analyzing historical data, it is possible to predict the probability of a failure and plan a scheduled maintenance shutdown. It is promising work that has aroused interest and promoted CBO's new maintenance strategy, based on efficiency, agility and security.
The solution is a variation of the ship's current Telesupervision and Predictive Maintenance System. This system consists of a supervisory SCADA /HMI BluePlant, Altus supervision software, which aggregates information from the electronic units responsible for monitoring vibration and temperature variables. After being collected and processed on board, the data is sent to the CBO Operational Base on land for analysis by the maintenance team, which allows the status (useful life) of the monitored machines to be assessed.
The Telesupervision System aims to meet the objectives of predictive maintenance, including: increasing the availability time and the degree of reliability of machines and equipment, preventing the increase in damage and increasing the safety of on-board personnel u> responsible for driving the vessel.
New technologies embarked on MB ships
The Brazilian Navy embraced the idea of finding technology produced in Brazil with national engineering intelligence. Over the last few years, the institution, alongside SKM, has worked on modernizing the control of a series of systems, using Altus product technology.
For Patrol Ships, for example, the company developed the navigation, signaling and ceremonial light panel, which allows information on the ship's navigation conditions, such as “navigating”, “anchored” and “man overboard”.
The panel contains a Nexto Series PLC and a HMI X2-BASE-10 and is controlled via the Modbus RTU communication protocol. The solution uses a group of smart cards developed by SKM to activate and adjust the intensity of navigation, signaling and ceremonial lamps, performing combinations standardized by the RIPEAM regulation (International Regulation to Prevent Collisions at Sea).
Credibility with the Brazilian Navy
The change in Navy guidelines and paradigms is another important milestone for the trajectory of Altus and SKM. Previously, the Brazilian Navy itself developed the supervision and control systems for its ships. Over the years, SKM becomes MB's partner in the development of projects, being responsible for carrying out update, repair and modernization actions of ships.
The future of partnership
In the coming years, the partnership between Altus and SKM will continue to promote national technological developmentand serve the Navy and the Control and Monitoring System Integrated from the Brazilian Military Ships Plant (IPMS). Just like us here at Altus, the company also aims for the coming years to reduce dependence on foreign technologies and promote the development of employment opportunities in the country.
