Power management with distributed intelligence

At Sea Japan a new power management system for marine applications will be introduced. The system is the result of a highly international cooperation between JRCS Corporation, Japan and the Danish generator control company DEIF A/S.

"For different reasons the market demands distributed systems. First and foremost for obvious safety reasons — but also because of a demand for increased user-friendliness of the systems", said Koichiro Kondo. managing director of JRCS. "Our new system can be operated from local as well as central operation panels, it offers significantly improved overall communication facilities due to CAN-bus communication, just as the system offers efficient interfacing to the alarm system on the ship." Distributed systems also mean potential cost savings; "In Jacom-22, as we have named the system, all protection and control functions are integrated into one unit. This means that only one unit per generator is mounted in the switchboard; thus involving less engineering and wiring work and offering space saving contributions to the switchboard design", says the JRCS managing director.

"At JRCS we decided to be the first switchboard builder on the market with such a system of our own.

Early in 1998 we were in contact with the Danish company DEIF who had presented to us their range of standard generator control products. This contact developed into the negotiation of an OEM-solution," Kondo san continues.

"It was of course not without hesitation that we entered this cooperation," Mr. Kondo says. "It was our first time to cooperate that closely with a European company and geographic as well as cultural distances seemed big.

Now, however, our hesitations have proven groundless. DEIF has been a very innovative and flexible partner in the project. At the same time the Internet has made the world smaller — with a dedicated homepage as the forum of the project and with efficient e-mail communication the geographical distance between the companies have meant no problems.

Finally staff and management in both companies have gained from the technological and cultural opportunities that this project has made available to them.

I believe this will result in lasting personal friendships and business associations," Kondo concludes.

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