From a record high attendance last year, we more than doubled the attendance at this years DNV Software Conference at Høvik in June. The latest news from our Nauticus, Sesam and Safeti suite of products and solutions were covered along with many interesting customer presentations. The main highlight was the key note speech from CEO in DNV, Henrik O. Madsen, where he pinpointed DNV’s position in the market and the importance of these software conferences held world-wide every year.

Ellen Bjørånesset and Bjørn Berger, administrator and host of the conference.

"I am very pleased with the qualtiy and high attendance this year which illustrates the commitment from our users" says Bjørn Berger, host for the software conference and regional manager EMEA, DNV Software.

In his keynote Elling Rishoff, managing director DNV Software, outlined the DNV Software strategy, and our industry positions. Like Henrik O. Madsen he also covered our environmental involvement.

The DNV Software Conference was arranged over two days on 11-12 June, with a combination of common sessions, parallell sessions, and workshops. After the opening, the conference was organised in separate product tracks all covering the latest news, status and plans. In addition, we succeeded in getting a great many external speakers to contribute with their experience.

In the Nauticus ship design track, Jim Knott from BMT Engineering International, UK, presented their experiences using Nauticus Early Design, while local calculations using GeniE were covered by Steven Pushparajah, Ulstein Verft. Stefan Johnson, FKAB Marine Design followed with an interesting lecture on IT from a consultant company’s perspective.

Ketil Aamnes, global sales & marketing director DNV Software (front) and the audience listening to the key note speech from Henrik O. Madsen, President & CEO in DNV.

For Nauticus Machinery, results from JIP Projects were presented by Bjørn-Johan Vartdal and transient vibrations and time domain simulations by Geir Dahler, both from DNV Maritime.

In the Sesam tracks we learned about Sesam used for FPSO conversions, presented by Dag Skaar, Inocean, and technology to stay competitive as a deepwater player by Plamen Stoykow, Keppel FELS. Erik B. Holm, Olav Olsen, talked about using Sesam in all phases from concept development to detail engineering of novel offshore vessels. Gassco, by Audun Brandtzæg, presented their improvement program external pipeline inspection and pipeline integrity management in StatoilHydro were covered by Anders Kvinnesland.

Plant integrity was the headline for the Safeti track, with main focus on the Orbit perspective and recent projects using the Orbit+ solutions.

In the evening we arranged the traditional boat trip on the Oslo Fjord, and this year the Christiania sail ship were filled to a max. Not only could we enjoy social mingling and a nice dinner onboard, but a also beautiful rainbow on the evening sky.

On the second day of the conference various workshops and training sessions were arranged, addressing relevant topics within the maritime, offshore and process industries. Our Nauticus customers were offered three different workshops, covering Nauticus Hull, Machinery Shaft Alignment and strength assessment of ships using Nauticus Early Design and GeniE. The Sesam workshops covered hydrodynamics, fixed structures and riser design. Our Safeti users were offered an introduction to the Orbit Onshore software. The workshops were a combination of hands-on training, lectures and discussions, to give the users more in-depth knowledge and understanding of our latest product innovations.

We received very positive feedback from the participants and would like to take this opportunity to thank all our customers and lecturers who participated in order to make the conference such a success.

User conferences around the globe are an efficient way of interacting with our existing and potensial new customers. The 2008 South East Asia Software Conferences were held 8 April in Singapore and 10 April in Kuala Lumpur with more than 160 participants in four different symposiums. With succesful completion of the conference at Høvik, we have still four more software conferences to come during the fall; 22 October in Houston, 7 November in Japan, 10 November in Shanghai and 13 November in Korea.

The dates for next years DNV Software Conference at Høvik are set to 26-27 May 2009. Looking forward to seeing you all back again then!

Check out our scheduled list of events for more updates.