5 Questions to William Egan
Vice president Sales & Marketing, Teledyne Marine Imaging and Instruments
William Egan is vice president Sales & Marketing at Teledyne marine Imaging and Instruments. Hydro International asked him (and other leaders in the business) 5 questions.
Technology and societal needs are changing rapidly. How is your company adapting to these changes?
We are constantly listening to our customers to ensure we deliver to their needs. Our customers demand better performance and ease of use to maximise their investment and to meet their needs and those of their customers.
This can be exemplified in our complete range of sonar systems across the brands to enable a customer to select the best equipment for their needs. In fact, we recently released the new Integrated Dual Head SeaBat T20-R/ T50-R and the Modular SeaBat T20-R & T50-R Multibeam Sonar at OCEANS 16 in Monterey. The SeaBat T-Series is a uniquely designed modularised sonar concept, of compact ultra-high resolution multibeam sonar systems suited for small survey platforms to larger vessels. The user-friendly configuration utility software SeaBat Updater enables you to configure the sonar processors from a 1 degree super compact and lightweight SeaBat T-20 to the ultra-high resolution 0.5 degree SeaBat T50, and back. We now provide maximised swath coverage of 220 degree and 1024 beams with advanced beam forming options. The built-in pre-configured INS, combined with the incredibly clean data, makes the system easy to use and mobilise and provides survey deliverables faster than ever before.
So for our customers this gives incredibly clean easy to process data, the advanced features like Normalized Backscatter, Multi-Detect, X-Range and very advanced beamforming modes for superior performance and results. The SeaBat T-series enables our customers to reduce survey and post-processing times to lower costs and offer more competitive service to their customers.
We’re also making it easier for our customers to find what they need. We’ve recently released a new more intuitively navigable Teledyne Marine website, with the content accessible by product brand, technology groupings, market segments and general search. We have also expanded our presence on social media channels and in blog participation, all geared toward making information and interaction more accessible.
On which applications does your company focus its research and development activities?
We see more and more of the market moving to drive the efficiency of working, safety of personnel, and creating better value through cost controls. This is established through early partnering on projects, establishing standards in design, and setting realistic performance requirements matched to the application.
Customers are looking for cost-effective solutions for existing and new operations, the ability to gain more insight through better technologies, and ensuring safety of personnel by utilising unmanned or autonomous platforms with longer mission duration.
We have many things we can work on across the group, but the challenge is ensuring we balance technology gaps, new and emerging technologies, as well as being agile in responding to demands. We continually assess the return on investment both for our customers and ourselves, as well as ensuring we are aligned with market requirements both today and tomorrow.
What is your company’s growth strategy?
Teledyne Marine is well positioned to create efficient solutions for new or existing operators through our breadth of components and turnkey system offerings. Our expanded Technical Sales organisation is applications-aware and is structured to allow us to usher in Teledyne subject matter experts to assist our customers in resolving challenges across our vast solutions, whether within Teledyne Marine or via the expanded expertise of Teledyne Technologies, or our many industry partners.
Teledyne has already demonstrated that consolidation leads to better economies of scale for the market. It also leads to better customer interaction and a wider choice of solutions, which ultimately leads to increased effectiveness for our customers and more efficient technology development for us.
How would you describe the hydrographic market these days?
Customers are expecting multiple deliverables from one survey, as well as automation and software for efficiency improvements. Being able to provide this integrated solution enables the user to have confidence in a secure end-to-end process and improve their operational excellence.
The Offshore market, specifically related to Oil & Gas, is down, but hopefully now at the bottom, so we are expecting a slow return.
We continue to see the development of ports and harbours and the investment of governments in civil infrastructures and environmental programs.
Which new or emerging markets do you foresee in the coming years?
With the requirement of improved return on investment, there is a greater need to move to lower cost platforms, e.g. AUVs, USVs, etc. with appropriate sensor suites to enable fast efficient surveys with faster processing of data, both onboard and post-processing.
We also see that with an aging infrastructure there needs to be a greater investment in civil engineering and dredging for the coming years, but much of this will be dependent on government investment and the challenge will be to get funding released.
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