The major suppliers of pods have been working together for more than a year in the Pod Quality Forum to harmonize and improve their Quality Instructions. The result of this work was presented at DNV’s stand at the Posidonia shipping exhibition today as members of the forum signed the first version of the instructions.
The signing is proof of the pod industry’s willingness to share experience in order to further improve quality for the benefit of its clients.
The forum consists of the three major pod manufacturers: ABB (Azipod), Rolls Royce AB (Mermaid) and Siemens/Schottel (SSP), with DNV as a secretary to facilitate their work. In total, some 150 pod propulsion systems have been supplied over the past few years to a variety of vessels, such as cruise ships, ferries, supply vessels and ice breakers. The available power range is 0.5-25 MW per propulsion unit.
The major advantages of pods include a great deal of flexibility in the arrangement of machinery installations, the relatively little space they require on board ships, and the fact that they provide very good vessel manoeuvrability compared to traditional propellers and rudders.
The operational experience gathered by both the pod suppliers and DNV has been shared in order to improve the overall quality of pods. Today, the industry’s track record shows there has only been 0.2 per cent unscheduled operational downtime – rather good for a relatively new technology like pods. The Pod Quality Forum aims to further improve pod quality and operational reliability, and the agreed common quality instructions are a tool to achieve this.
Process facilitator
“Our role here as a classification society is to initiate and facilitate processes within the industry to ensure conformity among the suppliers of pod propulsion systems regarding the quality of pods,” says DNV’s COO Maritime Tor Svensen. “The fact that the pod industry has established a common internal quality standard proves that this industry has attained an even more professional level. The instructions are general and apply to generic pod units. As a consequence, the technical differences between the manufacturers’ systems will remain.”
The quality instructions have been divided into three relevant phases:
• production phase
• post-production phase (including transport to yards and installation)
• operational phase
The new quality instructions come in addition to that which is normally required by the classification societies and will be implemented as an “Industry Standard” by each of the pod manufacturers involved.
For further information, please call:
Karl Morten Wiklund, DNV, +47 91676586
Antti Ruohonen, ABB, +358 102223712
Mats Johansson, Rolls Royce AB, +46 55084245
Manfred Heer, Schottel, +49 262861419
Joachim Gløel, Siemens, +49 4028893768
Date: 2004-06-11