Rolls Acquires Marine Automation Company

Rolls-Royce has acquired Servowatch Systems, a UK-based international supplier of integrated marine automation solutions for navies, commercial vessels and large yachts.

The company was owned by Indian engineering, procurement and construction projects, manufacturing, defense and services group Larsen & Toubro. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Servowatch, based in Heybridge, Essex, will significantly expand the ship automation division of the MTU product and solution brand of Rolls-Royce’s Power Systems business, the company said.

“Servowatch’s modern and sophisticated range of automation and integrated bridge systems for government and commercial ships and large yachts is the ideal complement to continue to offer sophisticated total system solutions for marine propulsion systems and the entire ship automation sector,” said Andreas Schell, CEO Rolls-Royce Power Systems. “Building on a state of the art automation platform and connecting it with our MTU SmartBridge and Digital Solutions we consequently follow our system strategy and being able to provide a fully integrated bridge-to-propeller-solution for our customers.”

The new subsidiary’s open automation systems will be fully integrated into MTU’s product range.

“With our Bluevision and Callosum systems, we have positioned ourselves excellently in the market for ship automation over the past two and a half decades. We are the only engine manufacturer in the world that can also supply the electronic platform for monitoring and controlling the entire ship. With Servowatch, we will continue to expand this position and modernize our product portfolio,” said Knut Müller, vice president of the Marine and Governmental Division of Rolls-Royce’s Power Systems business unit.

Servowatch employs approximately 35 people at its headquarters in Heybridge, with additional 11 people in India. Servowatch automation systems monitor and control the operation of numerous large ships, for example, large yachts and government vessels – not only the propulsion system but also numerous other functions such as heating and ventilation and power supply.

“Servowatch is completely complementary to what we do in marine automation,” said Kevin Daffey, director Marine Systems & Automation at Rolls-Royces’ Power Systems business unit. “Our new family member is focused on ships generally powered by high-speed diesel engines and an integrated system based around their world-class Winmon9 software. The integration with MTU products will help us add more lifecycle services through on-board data collection and edge analytics to inform the ship’s crew about vessel performance.”