Overview of Marine Data Systems
Tim Ingram, Managing Director starts…
The company first formed in the mid ’70s and became a Limited Company in 1978, so this is our 36th year of operation. We’ve been manufacturing commercial and military navigation equipment for ships all over the world from cruise liners to ocean freight carriers and defence.
The products Marine Data provide are repeaters – compass repeaters – for ships, that take the information from gyro, GPS, Transmitting Magnetic Compasses. We will provide instrumentation that will give you all the information that’s transmitted by those devices. We will also provide interfaces that will communicate from legacy products – like the old fashioned mass-spinning gyros – that take Synchro. And then we can convert it into a digital platform that a lot of modern repeaters – such as our own can display.
Occasionally, if it’s a specialist product, we will do installation of a specific product – if the product is a little bit sensitive; we’re doing all the integration of all the products – of legacy into new, modern digital products. We’ll then provide an on-board field service where we’ll go on board and we’ll do the survey and then we’ll do the installation and also the commissioning, the harbour tests, the sea trials and so forth.
Navigation technology in the last 10 years has changed quite dramatically. The technology that was put onto ships 10 years ago is very different to what we would expect to see today. Today we will see digital platforms where the communications around the ship is much quicker, faster and more reliable, which in turn makes the equipment more reliable. Ten years ago we were dealing with Synchro-based systems, Step systems, all of which are very mechanical based. And, even though the actual main components may be reliable, the mechanical train involved with Synchro-based systems was not the most reliable and efficient way of communicating around a ship.
So therefore technologies that we’ve developed over the last 10 years have changed the way we would communicate on board ship. We will take information from a lot of navigation instrumentation, sensor systems, and take it – via a digital platform – which can then be easily distributed around a ship.
Adrian Yelland, Sales & Marketing Director picks up…
Maritime industries have always been important to the UK as an island nation. We were, of course, a major ship builder at one time. This is no longer the case of course with competition from the Far East and other low-cost builders. But we still have a very core level of ability with marine equipment and in specialised vessels and naval vessels. The biggest challenges are the fact that major shipbuilding has gone overseas; we are challenged to address that and supply the industry which is no longer on our doorstep.
At the same time – in the future, I think – we have to face up to the fact that some of these countries are going to want to start making their own marine electronics, perhaps more than they do now. And what we have to do is we have to keep investing in R&D; and keep ahead of the game.
John Poyner, Commercial Director picks up…
Marine Data is differentiated from the rest of the business by virtue of the fact that we do all the in-house development. We do in-house testing and environmental testing – unlike many of our competitors. A huge amount of development goes into modern navigation equipment. It has to be tested environmentally – that is, temperature, vibration, magnetic effect on other equipment. Is it affected by that equipment or is it going to affect other equipment? All this has to be tested to prescribed documentation. It’s IEC 60945 – the standard; it’s an international standard, and all equipment has to be developed and tested to comply with those standards.
Tim Ingram picks up…
The organisation’s vision for the future is – we’re doing expansion; taking on a lot more employees; we’re taking on a lot more engineers and subsequently to produce more advanced products and to be able to build them faster and more cost-effectively.
