New Marine Technology: The Hallmark of SMM 2000
The SMM exhibition in Hamburg has once again proven that it is the cradle of marine technology and the grand-daddy of all marine exhibitions. On display in 12 separate halls were more than 1,300 exhibitors from more than 50 countries, launching new products and discussing business with an estimated 37,000 visitors. More telling that sheer numbers, in this case, is the feeling of the exhibition and the ubiquitous marine technology theme. The quality of attendee and exhibitor is always high, but this edition of the bi-annual exhibition seemed especially charged due to the many positives currently running throughout the full spectrum of the maritime market.
EMSA To Implement New Industry Standards
The European Marine STEP Association (EMSA) has published the first two business cases for "Exchange of Hull Form Design Data for Model Testing" and "Exchange of Structural Design Data for Hull Cross Section Approval" to become draft industry standards. For each of these two, one document - the business process description - outlines the business context and major high level application objects. An additional document - the EMSA protocol - offers developers of interfaces to various application systems with a specification that is ready to be implemented. In fact, several implementations have already been introduced successfully by the European research project Seasprite; further implementations are planned by other EMSA partners as well.
