Barco Wins Contract for Largest Control Room at Russian Railways
BARCO BECOMES INCREASINGLY MORE IMPORTANT AS VALUE-ADDING PROVIDER TO EASTERN EUROPEAN INFRASTRUCTURES
Kuurne, Belgium – December 15, 2000. BARCO has been chosen to provide a total of 68 m² visual display to the new Russian Railways Control Center to improve the overall supervision of the country’s most strategic traffic axes. In addition notable investments in BARCO control rooms have been made by other Russian companies like Beeline GSM, Golden Telecom, Rostelecom, Kosmos TV, Tyumen Energo, Moscow Subway and Central Bank. Recently numerous industry leaders and government agencies from other Eastern European countries have also selected BARCO to supply solutions for real time monitoring of similar systems and networks in order to improve economical as well as environmental quality throughout the area. In this way the revenue for the Barco Control Rooms business unit in Eastern Europe in 2000 has doubled versus 1999 to about Euro 5 million.
The recognition received by Barco’s large monitoring solutions, contributes considerably to the total sales revenue of Barco Projection Systems. With a worldwide market share of over 50%, Barco Control Rooms is the reference in professional Control & Operations centers. With Eastern European economy continuously improving, BARCO is largely optimistic about closing numerous opportunities in this area over the next year.
As a total solutions provider, BARCO combines its knowledge in mechanics, optics and electronics design into a comprehensive presentation of live traffic monitoring, high-quality video and data transmission. The management software links all field data captured by the SCADA application software to the visual display.
Software integration has been the decisive factor for Russian Railways to invest in this multi-screen solution. The operators now have a far better view on the actual railway conditions and can better determine what actions need to be implemented to improve traffic situations.
Next to the growing Russian market substantial orders also keep coming in from the rest of Europe, the US and Asia, as a result of the company’s worldwide market recognition. Potential growth markets are broadcasting, financial and service providing companies.
In order to live up to this continuous growth, Barco Control Rooms has decided to invest heavily in manufacturing resources in its Headquarters in Karlsruhe, Germany. “A combination of a new production facility with additional manpower and hi-tech machinery will allow us to double the current production of rear-projection units and will be implemented as of Spring 2001,” says Jean-Marie Vanalderweireldt, Business Unit Manager.
BARCO, with headquarters in Kortrijk, Belgium, has three key activities which are all active in Image Processing. Barco Projection is in various markets of large screen visualization. BarcoView develops and manufactures display systems for life critical applications, while BarcoVision is in systems for visual inspection and quality control. In 2000, the entire BARCO group delivered a turnover of euro 751 million. BARCO has a network of subsidiaries, distributors and agents in 97 countries throughout the world. BARCO has been quoted on the Brussels Bourse since 1986, and is now quoted on Brussels/Euronext. BARCO is a BEL 20 and a Next 150 company and is member of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes.
