Software kit helps with new marine ballast system

Engineered Software has launched its first product utilising its new Pipe-Flo Software Development Kit (SDK), the Glosten Ballast Management System.

Engineered Software has launched its first product utilising its new Pipe-Flo Software Development Kit (SDK), the Glosten Ballast Management System.

Glosten Associates, a full service marine consulting firm located in Seattle (USA) created the Ballast Management System in response to the growing need for large merchant vessels to track the intake, outflows and movement of water throughout their ballast systems.

Due to environmental implications, it has become increasingly important for vessels to track the movement of water through their ballast tanks as they move from port to port.

As these vessels travel around the world taking in and discharging water, non-native marine species can be introduced in to the environment with potentially damaging consequences.

In the Ballast Management System, Glosten said that it knew it had an innovative product idea.

However, it recognised a major stumbling block in the process of taking the project from the idea stage to production.

The company would need to determine how to track the water movement.

"We knew we could install flow meters, but they are expensive and notorious for not being reliable.

We also thought about developing our own custom calculation algorithm internally," said Kevin J Reynolds, senior marine engineer at Glosten Associates.

The cost of both of those options quickly became prohibitive.

According to Reynolds: "It would have taken us six months of development time to create the interface internally and using flow meters would have significantly increased the capital and installation costs of the product." The Pipe-Flo SDK works in conjunction with Engineered Software's Pipe-Flo Professional program.

As current users of Pipe-Flo Professional, Glosten was already using the program to design fluid piping systems in its vessel designs.

Understanding the power of the program, it wanted to utilise the software's capabilities to meet the company's specific needs.

Glosten needed to seamlessly transfer data inputs to Pipe-Flo and allow it to perform calculations and share that information with the Ballast Management System.

Using the Pipe-Flo SDK, it was able to make that happen quickly, effectively and with limited expense, said Engineered Software.

Reynolds said: "Without the Pipe-Flo SDK, the cost of the project would have been so great that we would have scrapped it in the design phase.

Using the Pipe-Flo SDK let us concentrate on the problem we were trying to solve because we didn't have to invent a tool to track water internal movements.

The set-up is simple.

Procedures are reliable and straightforward.

Pipe-Flo is the engine, our program starts the engine." Ray Hardee, vice president of engineering at Engineered Software continued: "We knew we had a product that would save time and money for developers.

We were very pleased to have Glosten Associates as our first SDK client and the company was great to work with on the project.

Glosten has been an outstanding client for years, and we are proud to be a part of its innovative Ballast Management System.

When we developed the SDK, this was exactly the purpose we had in mind.

We knew the SDK would cut months off of development schedules by taking advantage of Pipe-Flo's well-established capabilities.

The SDK was designed to be extremely easy to use, and we are pleased that Glosten found this to be true.

This was a win-win situation for everybody involved." Pipe-Flo is used by designers and operators to gain a clear picture of their fluid piping systems.

The program allows users to visualise their systems in a familiar format, calculate system operations, communicate the design with others and access supporting documents in electronic format, said Engineered Software.

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