Mor
Engineering identifies a valuable opportunity in marine instrumentation
Mor Engineering Ltd is a specialist commercial consultancy
based in Falmouth, founded in 2018 by Dr Sam Weller.
Sam has over 20 years’ engineering experience, having
started his career with British Aerospace. Since then he has worked at several
research institutes and Universities, where he gained post-doctoral experience
of engineering analysis of marine energy devices and mooring systems in an industry-led environment. As a result, he
decided to offer his unique expertise as a consultant.
Mor Engineering have identified an important opportunity
within the marine technology sector, as Sam explains:
“We have been involved in the specification of test
equipment for clients in the marine sector, utilising the R&D experience I
have gained over my career. This insight has revealed several shortcomings in
the instrumentation that is currently available.
“We believe there is massive market potential for providing
reliable sensing, data collection and transmission technologies - not just for
the maritime sector but also other industries as part of the ever-connected
Internet of Things.”
However, the company does not intend to try to compete
head-on with the large, established manufacturers. Sam says:
“We will focus on technologies for niche markets, for
example sensing and data capture applications in challenging environments which
require specialist, transferable knowledge. Marine is a classic example of such
a market.
“A review of the marine sector has revealed that some of the
relevant products produced by well-known instrumentation firms utilise firmware
that is based on ‘old’ technologies developed over 10 years ago. We have
identified a gap in the market for a specialist business that can provide high
quality, custom-made instrumentation.”
Dr Sam Weller is an engineer specialising in the response
analysis and mooring system design of marine energy devices, floating wind and
tidal turbines as well as vessels. So he has seen first-hand the stresses and
strains that this equipment is subject to and the limitations of many ‘off the
shelf’ devices. He says:
“Many facets of the maritime sector require robust,
long-term data capture systems for monitoring or tracking marine operations,
environmental impact and asset integrity. The technologies which are currently employed
for these tasks tend to be generic equipment that requires marinisation,
is unreliable in hostile environments or
has a limited operational lifetime.
“Mor Engineering has considerable experience in the design,
specification and reliability testing of marine equipment in challenging
environments as well as mechatronic prototyping. This experience will be
utilised to develop a working prototype of a robust, modular datalogging system
capable of exceeding the performance of most commercial systems currently
available.”
For a young business, it was difficult to raise the funding
needed for prototype development and testing, which is why a Rapid Innovation
Grant from Marine-i provided a crucial boost for the project. Matt Hodson,
Marine Operations Director for Cornwall Development Company says:
“We felt that it was really important for Marine-i to
support this initiative and help to accelerate its development. The proposed
technology would generate new business opportunities with marine companies and
research organisations. In the short term, local businesses could be used for
sub-contracting work, while long-term growth would create new employment in our
marine supply chain.”
Dr Sam Weller adds:
“In addition to vital grant funding, Marine-i are also helping
us with business mentoring and with networking opportunities in the marine
sector in Cornwall and beyond. For a new business like ours, this kind of
support from marine specialists is simply invaluable.”