GE Aims To Be Single Source Supplier
General Electric's one-stop-shop approach helps land Disney cruise ship order General Electric (GE), a company with strong maritime roots, has created a one-stopshop approach to marketing its products to the commercial and military markets. This integrated approach has led to lucrative contracts and helped position the company as a partner to vessel builders and owners.
"Integrated marine power systems" is the philosophy of the four GE businesses which have pooled their expertise to offer customers a one-stop shopping approach. This GE team was created to provide propulsion and control systems and equipment for customers in the commercial and naval marine propulsion markets. The systems offered incorporate gas turbine mechanical drive, gas turbine electric drive and dieselelectric drive technologies using GE gears, power converters, motors and programmable logic (PLC)-based control systems.
"This team approach has already proven successful, with GE capturing significant orders worldwide, including projects in China with Shengli Oil for a workboat, and more recently, a contract to supply two ship sets of propulsion equipment for two new Disney cruise ships," said Rick Veltri, marine industry sales manager. "We've proven that this marine team can make it easier for our customers to access the full breadth of GE technologies and scope of products and services to meet all shipboard power requirements." For the Disney project, GE's marine team will provide the electric drive propulsion systems and the ships' automated machinery control and monitoring systems. This will include two, 25,000-hp propulsion motors, associated LCI drives, GE Fanuc-based automation and controls, as well as other auxiliaries. GE's marine team designs and builds entire propulsion systems, as well as supplying individual components. Equally important, all of this is backed with an international network of strategically-placed GE experts, technicians and facilities. The businesses which comprise GE's marine team, and the services each business provides are as follows: GE Marine & Industrial Engines (Evendale, Ohio) offers the LM series of aeroderivative gas turbines. These are highly efficient gas turbines which propel more than 375 vessels, from pleasure yachts and fast ferries, to frigates and destroyers for the U.S. Navy (and 23 foreign navies). The LM series ranges in power from 6,000 to 50,000 hp. Full operational availability in the world's LM-powered fleet averages more than 99 percent. In marine applications, LM gas turbines are available as base-mounted models or as a complete, packaged, shockmounted propulsion system ready for shipboard use. Recent fast ferry programs which feature LM gas turbines are the Stena's HSS-class Explorer, the Aquastrada-class Guizzo, SEAJET 250 and Far East Hydrofoil's Foilcat. The high-speed yacht Destriero, powered by three LM1600s, set the transatlantic crossing record in 1992.
Additionally, GE maintains a facility in Lynn, Mass., dedicated to the design, manufacture and testing of propulsion gears for the U.S. Navy and commercial ships.
GE provides gearing for LNG tankers, including two being built by Fincantieri in Italy, slated for delivery in 1996 and 1997. GE gears are also used on the U.S. Navy's Arleigh Burke DDG-51 destroyers, and will be used on NASSCO-built Sealift vessels for the U.S. Navy.
GE Industrial Systems (Salem, Va.) manufactures electrical adjustable speed power converter equipment and associated motors, process controls and turbine controls. GE's adjustable speed drives and motors have been applied to main propulsion, thrusters, cargo pumps and azimuth drives, and range from 200 to 25,000 hp, for both DC and AC power propulsion systems. In addition, GE's Mark V turbine controllers are available for both steam and gas turbines. GE Industrial Systems' drives and propulsion motors can be found on dinner boat Creole Queen (DC thrusters), Canadian Coast Guard's Class-1200 icebreakers (AC propulsion), MSC fast sealift vessels (Mark V gas turbine controls), as well as on a variety of other workboats and oceanographic research vessels.
GE Power Systems (Schenectady, N.Y.) provides support for other activities which are crucial to optimizing customers' marine power systems. Services include marine systems application engineering and design using computer-aided engineering and design for electric propulsion systems and GE's advanced gas turbine combined-cycle propulsion systems. GE also offers system optimization, equipment selection and system layout.
GE Marine Systems (Hampton, Va.) offers two principal products: marine automation systems and marine power distribution systems. These products provide round-the-clock automatic monitoring and control over a ship's machinery plant that is tailored to meet owner and classification society requirements. GE Marine Systems also provides project management, system engineering, integration engineering and installation/start-up engineering services to ensure GE systems meet all customer requirements. GE marine automation systems are PLC-based systems which provide for fully automatic or remote manual control over a ship's main propulsion and auxiliary machinery. This type of system can accommodate a wide variety of inputs from sensors built into the ship's systems or embedded in machinery. GE works with shipbuilders and equipment suppliers to define what machinery is to be monitored and controlled, from what locations and under what modes of operation. GE power distribution systems are designed and built to connect the ship's electrical generating capacity with the ship's connected electrical loads. Full metering and switching relaying are provided with these systems. GE Marine Systems has systems on container liners, breakbulk cargo carriers, oceanographic research vessels, product tankers, ferry boats, paddlewheel casino boats and U.S.
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