The GBS Group Awarded Contract to Upgrade NOAA Ships Pisces and Bell Shimada

The GBS Group announced today that they have received a Firm Fixed Price contract from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to design, build, install, and commission a new Machinery Control System (MCS) for the Fisheries Research Ships Pisces and Bell M. Shimada.  The design work will be done in our Virginia Beach, VA office and the install work will be completed in Pascagoula, MS and Newport, OR.

“This is a significant win for the GBS team as we continue to grow our expertise and capabilities in machinery controls and automation work specifically in propulsion machinery control systems and expand our customer reach into NOAA.  We have successfully worked with NOAA previously on the NOAA Ship Fairweather and we look forward to continued success on Pisces and Bell M. Shimada.  This award solidifies our footprint with NOAA that compliments are ongoing work with US Navy, Military Sealift Command (MSC) and US Coast Guard” said Rick Berkey (RADM, ret), The GBS Group Chief Operating Officer.  

The GBS Group will follow a structured design process to create a state of the art integrated system that will replace the existing Machinery Control System (MCS) on NOAA Ships PISCES and SHIMADA that will be based upon a distributed producer/consumer model, consisting of Intel processor-based Human Machine Interface (HMI) displays, redundant PLC processors, PLC-based Input/Output (I/O) modules, and remote alarm panels networked together. The new system shall consist of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) equipment packaged and mounted in the existing Machinery Control System consoles.  It will provide monitoring capability from the Machinery Control Station and Pilot House as well as designated engineering staterooms.

For more information about The GBS Group’s Maritime services contact Seth Heinrich, VP of Maritime, Controls, and Automation, at (757) 965-4274.