Industrial and Mechanical Engineering
ReferencesKoja
Bitwise's solution makes it possible to update the software on thousands of valves across the whole ship in one go, with no physical maintenance work in each cabin. Apart from the development of new features, the software needs hardly any maintenance. The result of the collaboration is reliable, stable software that will bring Koja considerable cost savings in the long run.
Koja Group is a 90-year-old Finnish family company that provides smart, energy-efficient air handling solutions for buildings and ships, as well as fan solutions for industry. Koja Group delivers innovative technology solutions efficiently and safely, with the aim of helping its customers reach their own energy and environmental targets. In addition to the parent company Koja-Yhtiöt Oy, the group includes Koja Oy and Chiller Oy, together with their subsidiaries and operations in Finland, Sweden and the USA.
Koja Group's Marine business specialises in marine industry projects and is known for its top-class air conditioning solutions. Koja delivers complete, factory-ready systems that combine reliable equipment with intelligent automation. The company's innovative solutions focus on energy efficiency and passenger comfort. Koja has delivered air conditioning systems for some of the world's largest cruise ships, such as Star of the Seas.
Koja Marine's innovation transforms cabin ventilation – a Tampere success story conquers the world's largest cruise ships
Koja's occupancy-based cabin area air conditioning cuts energy consumption by up to 60 per cent compared with a conventional cabin area. Over a large cruise ship's annual consumption, that means fuel savings of up to 52 tanker truck loads.
Koja Marine manufactures air conditioning systems for vessels such as cruise ships, where producing fresh air accounts for a significant share of the ship's energy consumption. A single ship can have up to 3,000 cabins, so occupancy-based ventilation can deliver substantial savings.
Traditionally, cabin supply and exhaust air volumes could not be adjusted, even though cruise passengers often spend their time outside their cabins. Koja's cabin-specific occupancy-based ventilation system (OBV® Occupancy Based Ventilation, patent no. EP3591302B1) is a game changer for cruise ships. It allows the ventilation of each individual cabin to be adjusted in real time or shut off completely.
Koja's patented OBV® system uses real-time occupancy data. Images: Koja
The intelligent system takes care of air quality automatically: sensors integrated into Koja's supply and exhaust air valve monitor cabin conditions such as temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide level and occupancy in real time. The system optimises ventilation cabin by cabin without compromising passenger comfort.
Koja's OBV® system has a considerable impact on cruise ships' total emissions: adjusting each cabin's ventilation to actual need reduces energy consumption by up to 60 per cent compared with a conventional cabin area. This equals up to 4 per cent of the whole ship's electricity consumption, which for a large cruise ship means up to 52 tanker truck loads of fuel a year.
With Koja's OBV® system, large cruise ships can save up to 52 tanker truck loads of fuel a year. As the International Maritime Organization (IMO) tightens its emission reduction requirements, energy efficiency matters more than ever. Image: Koja
In a product project, maintainable and readable code is the cornerstone of a long life cycle
When it was time for Koja to move the OBV® system from R&D into production, it chose Bitwise to develop the valve controller software. The aim of the collaboration was to give a product with a long life cycle the best possible start.
Bitwise brought specialist expertise in embedded software design and in several areas of software engineering, such as configuration, version and dependency management. Embedded software design follows the same quality and design principles as software design in general, but the special requirements of the embedded environment also had to be taken into account. Bitwise has more than 20 years of experience with them.
As the project progressed, the team found solutions that improve the OBV® system's efficiency and make it easier to distribute updates and maintain the system well into the future: “Early in the project, the client described how much work it took to update the software on the thousands of valves on a whole cruise ship: each valve had to be updated separately by physically going to it. We started looking into mass-loading the program over the fieldbus. That way, the update could be loaded onto every valve on the ship at once over Ethernet and the fieldbuses,” says Bitwise expert Pauli Aho.
Koja gave Bitwise's proposal the green light straight away: “This is a huge advantage, especially in the marine industry, because Koja's OBV® system can have almost 6,000 ventilation valves on a single ship,” says Markku Kumpula from Koja Marine.
The result of the collaboration is reliable, stable software that will bring Koja considerable cost savings in the long run. Bitwise's solution makes it possible to update the software on thousands of valves across the whole ship in one go, with no physical maintenance work in each cabin. Apart from the development of new features, the software needs hardly any maintenance. High-quality code means new features can be developed with a reasonable amount of work and without significant risk of breaking existing ones.
Markku Kumpula from Koja says a single ship can have almost 6,000 ventilation valves.
Kumpula praises Bitwise's experts: “The project schedule was really tight, but working with Bitwise was easy from the very start and stayed easy right to the end. During the project, Bitwise's experts gave us a fresh perspective on software development. Maybe this will help us take those perspectives into account in our own application development on the automation side, too.”
Bitwise is your partner when you need high-quality, reliable software
We are your partner when you need high-quality, reliable software for a demanding environment. Embedded software development calls for a wide range of skills: an understanding of electronics and how hardware works, and above all strong expertise in software design and engineering.
The best end-to-end embedded system solutions are built together with a rock-solid software development partner.
Challenge
Solution
“The project schedule was really tight, but working with Bitwise was easy from the very start and stayed easy right to the end. New ideas kept coming from both sides throughout the project, and we were able to implement and test them quickly. Coming from such a traditional industry, it was a pleasure to discover that Finland has rock-solid software development professionals.”
Energy
Danfoss Editron
Efficient powertrain systems for environments that demand both weather resistance and mechanical durability.
Industrial and Mechanical Engineering
Nokeval
Cloud-based, real-time condition monitoring for sites where temperature and hygiene deviations need an immediate response.
Industrial and Mechanical Engineering
Dekati Oy
Precise fine particle measurement for air quality monitoring and emission measurements at temperatures up to 1,200 degrees.