PROJECT is a
Windows Embedded Partner since 2002

The MarkDCS-based Safety Management System (SMS) is being routinely installed on all new major Princess Cruises ships, starting from the Grand Princess (picture), which debuted in 1998, at that time the largest cruise ship ever built. Since then, SMS has been installed on about 30 similar cruise ships, and also on a few military and cargo vessels.

The SMS is certainly the most challenging MarkDCS application and perhaps one of the largest process control applications running on PC's. It constantly monitors all fire and flood onboard safety devices, dispatches operator commands and performs automatic actions in response to an emergency in absence of operator intervention. On each ship, six to eight networked PC's in a high-reliability redundant scheme control 8,000 to 10,000 sensors and actuators. Any station can interchangeably take control of all functions and two of them communicate with the field in a hot-backup scheme. The total number of single I/O points under control sums up to almost 100,000 and the number of expanded objects exceeds 800,000.