Simrad makes a bright return

NAVICO released its latest Simrad NSE system to a gathering of marine electronics dealers and installers around the country. Marine Business went along to the Sydney leg of the “roadshow” to sample the new product and hear from Navico on its ideas for product development and R&D.

Navico’s director of marketing and sales, Damien Weber, said the NSE combines all of Navico’s premium technology, from across the diverse range of brands, into one tough Simrad unit.

“This unit fills a very important hole for us in high end game fishing and luxury leisure market,” said Weber.

At a glance, some of the standout features include: A super fast loading fully loaded chartplotter; this high power processing lets the user zoom, pan and navigate with literally no chart lag time. It also features 2D, 3D and shaded relief capability presentation modes and comes with the new Simrad High Performance GS15 GPS 5 hz Antenna, with NMEA2000/SomNet connections.

The impressive BSM-1 Broadband Sonar and B24 Broadband Radar also feature on the NSE.

The unit itself is built solid reflecting the target market of professional operators and the serious game fishing market. The NSE’s interface has been refigured for easy operation. Features of the interface include a rotary controller, curser pad, and alphanumeric keypad. The overall design appears user friendly and wouldn’t take long to master.

The unit’s screens feature a low power LED display for a noticeably bright screen. “The screens on our products are a real standout, we probably spend more money on the screens than anything else … we have our very own optics team that enable us to do that so well,” said Navico’s Asia Pacific COO, John Scott.

Interestingly, the release of this product from Simrad makes clear Navico’s strategy for utilising the market leading technology from across its brands into one high-end unit.

John Scott explained the company’s product and company rationalisation since the brands were combined in 2007. Navico’s goal was to buy the industry leading brands for each marine electronics technology, and then to build a comprehensive portfolio, some of which we’ve seen before in other Navico brands for other applications.

“In 2007 we got everyone together, hired a boat, and put every product we sold on the back of a 50 foot craft. What we found was that we had a $1000 Lowrance product outperforming a $5000 Simrad product. When we got to the bottom of it, it was clear that Northstar/Navman that were doing car products, had the quality of build and technology that was light years ahead of the Simrad or Lowrance products,” said Scott.

“This was because Navman was building hundreds and thousands a month, where as the others were only doing the same in a year. So what we’ve done is get the very best out of these brands.

“The logic with Simrad was to build up the core technologies first … what we did with the radar, the autopilot, the sounder module and VHF, was to have all these core products in place before we launched the integrated unit. When we say we have the best in class, we’re pretty sure we mean it,” he said.

Navico has “rationalised” R&D across the globe to cut out the complexity of having separate brands, while streamlining product development.

“When we came together in 2007 the company had almost 400 engineers, now we’re down to about 150. When that happens we’re left with some very good engineers,” said Scott.

“What this gives us is very well balanced team …we have the best engineers specialising in what they do best. It also gives us a clearer idea of where to go for product and technical issues. If you had a product issue in 2007, it was very hard to work out where the product was made and designed. The biggest plus for everyone here today is that all Simrad products are designed close by in New Zealand.”