Menu
Are you tired of balancing survey productivity against accuracy requirements?
Customer
A survey manager at an independent survey company that specializes in coastal surveys along the eastern seaboard of the U.S.
Story
In early 2018, the company won a contract that put them in a situation of conducting two surveys back to back. With the survey for a previously booked contract already scheduled to begin on a certain date, it was critical that the first project be completed on time. Any delays would jeopardize the second project, activating financial penalties and damaging the company’s reputation. Given the high sound speed variability expected in the first project’s survey area, the survey manager was concerned that the frequency with which they would need to stop the vessel to obtain sound velocity profiles would threaten punctual completion.
The survey manager knew he needed a way to collect SV data without ever stopping the vessel in order to finish the survey within the 30 day window and to the specifications stipulated in the contract. In anticipation of this, he tried an entry level system, but found it completely inadequate. He then approached AML. We provided MVP30, a real-time underway profiling system designed for the rigors of commercial survey work.
Results
The first survey was completed with room to spare, and the second began on time. Both customers were impressed not only by the timely delivery of their products, but the noticeably higher quality, which the survey manager attributed to the continuous, real-time feed of sound velocity data into the multibeam system.
Are you unable to collect sufficiently dense profile data or measure all desired parameters simultaneously?
Customer
Joint Manager for a national marine mapping programme.
Story
Two national marine institutes joined forces with two renowned mapping groups to track the upper and lower boundaries of the thermocline in an area of the Atlantic Ocean that is both economically and biologically significant. Known as a complex, and therefore highly variable area, the visiting mapping groups knew that data density would be key to accurately measuring these boundaries. To ensure that a high density of data would be amassed, the institutes had AML Oceanographic help them mobilize an MVP200, which would continuously profile the full water column in real-time.
Results
The MVP collected CTD data continuously as the vessel traveled through the large survey area at around 8 knots. The high density of data provided by this method produced highly accurate results for both the core mapping project and the scientific research being conducted simultaneously. Having experienced the benefits, the institutes expect the use of an MVP to become standard equipment for both research and mapping expeditions going forward.
Can you trust that you’ll be able to meet survey specifications regardless of oceanography conditions?
Customer
A survey manager at a European branch of a global survey company.
Story
We were approached by a survey manager who was frustrated by the struggle to meet survey specifications due to unexpectedly challenging oceanography. With no room for padding bids to ensure profitability in the current competitive survey market, the lack of predictability with respect to performance and productivity made it difficult to bid jobs accurately and then execute within the parameters of the contract. He explained that this was because he regularly had to sacrifice survey productivity to maintain survey specifications. Due to dynamic oceanography, he was often forced stop the vessel frequently to take SV casts and reduce multibeam swath coverage, which resulted in running more survey lines. These adjustments would push project completion past the deadline time and again.
He wanted to remove oceanography as a major risk component to his survey to guarantee that he could always meet the specifications stipulated in the contract, with respect to both data quality and timelines. We provided a real-time, underway profiling solution, MVP200. This allowed him to take casts automatically and continuously while the ship was underway to produce quality results in a fixed amount of time, regardless of oceanography conditions.
Results
On their first survey with our solution, he said they did 500 SV casts without stopping the vessel once. This drastically increased productivity, and data quality improved due to the high SV cast density with real-time implementation. With MVP, they can bid jobs more accurately, ensuring profitability and satisfied customers. Their experience with MVP200 has been so successful that they now consider it a critical component of their survey equipment.
Are you concerned about maintaining your reputation as a provider of quality product, delivered on time and within budget?
Customer
COO of a global survey company.
Story
We were approached by the COO of a global survey firm because he was struggling to keep his company profitable in the depressed market. He explained that this was caused by the lack of predictability in their survey operations with respect to performance and productivity. This made it difficult to bid jobs accurately, harming both the company’s reputation and bottom line when projects pushed past budgets and timelines. He said what he needed was a way to reduce those uncertainties as much as possible.
His tender managers needed to be able to accurately estimate costs and timelines for each project in order to submit bids that are competitive yet profitable. Likewise, his survey managers needed to be able to reliably produce quality results to the specifications set by the client within the budgets and timelines the company committed to in each contract. We provided MVP300, a real-time, underway profiling solution. Since it automatically provides continuous, high density sound velocity data over the full water column, it assures the predictability of performance in the field that allows for greater accuracy and execution from the bid stage through to delivery of the end product to the client.
Results
This company has enhanced their reputation for delivering high quality data within committed timelines, all the while reaping commercial benefits from the increased productivity on their survey vessels.
Do you struggle to bid competitively without risking profitability?
Customer
A tender manager at a South American branch of a global survey company.
Story
The tender manager was preparing his company’s bid for a contract to provide all survey services to his nation’s navy for the next five years. While estimating project costs, he thought back to his last three jobs where he had submitted bids based on historic conditions of stable oceanography in order to be competitive enough to win the work. In each case, conditions were more dynamic than expected, forcing the survey managers to tighten their multibeam swath and stop to take profiles up to twice as often as planned. All three projects finished behind schedule, resulting in unhappy customers and negative gross profit on the books.
Winning this big contract could mean securing significant revenue for years to come, and along with it job security for his team. He was aware, however, of the thin line between a bid competitive enough to win, and a bid too low to be profitable. The latter would chain his company to a money losing venture for the next five years while simultaneously tying up a high percentage of their resources, blocking their participation in more profitable projects. He decided this was a risk he could not take. He came to us looking for a solution that could remove oceanography as a major risk component to his survey so that he could bid with confidence. We provided MVP300, an automated, real-time, underway profiling solution that maintains productivity regardless of oceanographic conditions, allowing him to reliably predict costs and bid confidently, competitively, and profitably.
Results
The company won the contract after submitting a bid calculated with productivity as a known factor for the first time. MVP has become a unique differentiator for the company because it has enabled competitive pricing and helped the company build a reputation for timely delivery of a high quality product.
Are you frustrated by the logistics and costs associated with holding XBT inventories?
Customer
Chief Hydrographer of a premier navy in the Western hemisphere.
Story
The director of a naval hydrographic department recently oversaw his fleet’s completion of a massive coastal survey operation following a devastating hurricane. He was under immense pressure to get the survey done as quickly as possible because the storm passed through several shipping lanes, which could not be re-opened until the survey was completed. The data had to be high quality – IHO S44 Special Order in some areas – due to the significance of the zone, so they had to use XBTs to obtain sufficient density of SV data. By the time the survey was completed, the department had used up its entire annual budget of XBTs. The financial burden already placed on the department by the storm was exaggerated by the need to replace their XBT inventory in order to complete their assignments scheduled in the second half of the year.
The director did not want to spend more money on a disposable, single-use resource, but he was not willing to give up the high productivity and high data density that they enabled. We provided one of his vessels an MVP30, a continuous, real-time, underway profiling solution which gave him the efficiency and convenience that he needed and eliminated the budget and inventory hassles of XBT usage.
Results
The difference in performance of the projects carried out by the vessel with the MVP in comparison with the rest of the fleet was so remarkable that the director initiated a schedule to acquire MVPs for 16 vessels over the following 12 years. Since incorporating our solution across his fleet, his department has not had to manage an XBT inventory nor worry about blowing their budget on a single project with particularly challenging conditions.
Are you tired of balancing survey productivity against accuracy requirements?
Customer
A survey manager at an independent survey company that specializes in coastal surveys along the eastern seaboard of the U.S.
Story
In early 2018, the company won a contract that put them in a situation of conducting two surveys back to back. With the survey for a previously booked contract already scheduled to begin on a certain date, it was critical that the first project be completed on time. Any delays would jeopardize the second project, activating financial penalties and damaging the company’s reputation. Given the high sound speed variability expected in the first project’s survey area, the survey manager was concerned that the frequency with which they would need to stop the vessel to obtain sound velocity profiles would threaten punctual completion.
The survey manager knew he needed a way to collect SV data without ever stopping the vessel in order to finish the survey within the 30 day window and to the specifications stipulated in the contract. In anticipation of this, he tried an entry level system, but found it completely inadequate. He then approached AML. We provided MVP30, a real-time underway profiling system designed for the rigors of commercial survey work.
Results
The first survey was completed with room to spare, and the second began on time. Both customers were impressed not only by the timely delivery of their products, but the noticeably higher quality, which the survey manager attributed to the continuous, real-time feed of sound velocity data into the multibeam system.
Are you unable to obtain sufficiently dense profile data or measure all desired parameters simultaneously?
Customer
Joint Manager for a national marine mapping programme.
Story
Two national marine institutes joined forces with two renowned mapping groups to track the upper and lower boundaries of the thermocline in an area of the Atlantic Ocean that is both economically and biologically significant. Known as a complex, and therefore highly variable area, the visiting mapping groups knew that data density would be key to accurately measuring these boundaries. To ensure that a high density of data would be amassed, the institutes had AML Oceanographic help them mobilize an MVP200, which would continuously profile the full water column in real-time.
Results
The MVP collected CTD data continuously as the vessel traveled through the large survey area at around 8 knots. The high density of data provided by this method produced highly accurate results for both the core mapping project and the scientific research being conducted simultaneously. Having experienced the benefits, the institutes expect the use of an MVP to become standard equipment for both research and mapping expeditions going forward.
Can you trust that you’ll be able to meet survey specifications regardless of oceanography conditions?
Customer
A survey manager at a European branch of a global survey company.
Story
We were approached by a survey manager who was frustrated by the struggle to meet survey specifications due to unexpectedly challenging oceanography. With no room for padding bids to ensure profitability in the current competitive survey market, the lack of predictability with respect to performance and productivity made it difficult to bid jobs accurately and then execute within the parameters of the contract. He explained that this was because he regularly had to sacrifice survey productivity to maintain survey specifications. Due to dynamic oceanography, he was often forced stop the vessel frequently to take SV casts and reduce multibeam swath coverage, which resulted in running more survey lines. These adjustments would push project completion past the deadline time and again.
He wanted to remove oceanography as a major risk component to his survey to guarantee that he could always meet the specifications stipulated in the contract, with respect to both data quality and timelines. We provided a real-time, underway profiling solution, MVP200. This allowed him to take casts automatically and continuously while the ship was underway to produce quality results in a fixed amount of time, regardless of oceanography conditions.
Results
On their first survey with our solution, he said they did 500 SV casts without stopping the vessel once. This drastically increased productivity, and data quality improved due to the high SV cast density with real-time implementation. With MVP, they can bid jobs more accurately, ensuring profitability and satisfied customers. Their experience with MVP200 has been so successful that they now consider it a critical component of their survey equipment.
Are you concerned about maintaining your reputation as a provider of quality product, delivered on time and within budget?
Customer
COO of a global survey company.
Story
We were approached by the COO of a global survey firm because he was struggling to keep his company profitable in the depressed market. He explained that this was caused by the lack of predictability in their survey operations with respect to performance and productivity. This made it difficult to bid jobs accurately, harming both the company’s reputation and bottom line when projects pushed past budgets and timelines. He said what he needed was a way to reduce those uncertainties as much as possible.
His tender managers needed to be able to accurately estimate costs and timelines for each project in order to submit bids that are competitive yet profitable. Likewise, his survey managers needed to be able to reliably produce quality results to the specifications set by the client within the budgets and timelines the company committed to in each contract. We provided MVP300, a real-time, underway profiling solution. Since it automatically provides continuous, high density sound velocity data over the full water column, it assures the predictability of performance in the field that allows for greater accuracy and execution from the bid stage through to delivery of the end product to the client.
Results
This company has enhanced their reputation for delivering high quality data within committed timelines, all the while reaping commercial benefits from the increased productivity on their survey vessels.
Do you struggle to bid competitively without risking profitability?
Customer
A tender manager at a South American branch of a global survey company.
Story
The tender manager was preparing his company’s bid for a contract to provide all survey services to his nation’s navy for the next five years. While estimating project costs, he thought back to his last three jobs where he had submitted bids based on historic conditions of stable oceanography in order to be competitive enough to win the work. In each case, conditions were more dynamic than expected, forcing the survey managers to tighten their multibeam swath and stop to take profiles up to twice as often as planned. All three projects finished behind schedule, resulting in unhappy customers and negative gross profit on the books.
Winning this big contract could mean securing significant revenue for years to come, and along with it job security for his team. He was aware, however, of the thin line between a bid competitive enough to win, and a bid too low to be profitable. The latter would chain his company to a money losing venture for the next five years while simultaneously tying up a high percentage of their resources, blocking their participation in more profitable projects. He decided this was a risk he could not take. He came to us looking for a solution that could remove oceanography as a major risk component to his survey so that he could bid with confidence. We provided MVP300, an automated, real-time, underway profiling solution that maintains productivity regardless of oceanographic conditions, allowing him to reliably predict costs and bid confidently, competitively, and profitably.
Results
The company won the contract after submitting a bid calculated with productivity as a known factor for the first time. MVP has become a unique differentiator for the company because it has enabled competitive pricing and helped the company build a reputation for timely delivery of a high quality product.
Are you frustrated by the logistics and costs associated with holding XBT inventories?
Customer
Chief Hydrographer of a premier navy in the Western hemisphere.
Story
The director of a naval hydrographic department recently oversaw his fleet’s completion of a massive coastal survey operation following a devastating hurricane. He was under immense pressure to get the survey done as quickly as possible because the storm passed through several shipping lanes, which could not be re-opened until the survey was completed. The data had to be high quality – IHO S44 Special Order in some areas – due to the significance of the zone, so they had to use XBTs to obtain sufficient density of SV data. By the time the survey was completed, the department had used up its entire annual budget of XBTs. The financial burden already placed on the department by the storm was exaggerated by the need to replace their XBT inventory in order to complete their assignments scheduled in the second half of the year.
The director did not want to spend more money on a disposable, single-use resource, but he was not willing to give up the high productivity and high data density that they enabled. We provided one of his vessels an MVP30, a continuous, real-time, underway profiling solution which gave him the efficiency and convenience that he needed and eliminated the budget and inventory hassles of XBT usage.
Results
The difference in performance of the projects carried out by the vessel with the MVP in comparison with the rest of the fleet was so remarkable that the director initiated a schedule to acquire MVPs for 16 vessels over the following 12 years. Since incorporating our solution across his fleet, his department has not had to manage an XBT inventory nor worry about blowing their budget on a single project with particularly challenging conditions.
Learn how Fugro was able to save time and money while improving survey data quality.
Learn how INFOMAR was able to increase survey coverage and efficiency by 12% thanks to MVP's ability to maintain vessel speed and reduce the number of line turns required.
Learn how the University of Brunswick adds credibility to their research by using MVP to collect several hundred profiles per day.
MVP is unlike:
AML’s Moving Vessel Profiler is proven to remove both the technical and financial unpredictability associated with survey operations.
Use MVP to take frequent rapid casts continuously and in real time.
With over 130 systems sold, MVP is the market leader in underway profiling systems, and is backed by 20 years of experience and thousands of successful surveys.
Efficiently survey coastal waters on your 25' launch.
Collect all desired parameters - hydrographic and ocean science - simultaneously.
Collect multiparameter data over the full water column at great depths.
