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Table of contents |
• Foreword from the Chairman
• News: GeoSIG Expansion
• Solution Focus: Structural Health Monitoring on the Rise
• GeoSIG on World Stage
• Product Focus: Outstanding and Unique - The GMS Netquakes Recorder
• Partner Focus: Don Blair, Nuclear Logistics, Inc. USA
• New Faces at GeoSIG: Florian Gegier
• Call for Articles | |
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| Foreword from the Chairman |
Organisations as a dynamic body often strive for change; often at their core, for renewed energy and new directions to be set and followed. Intensive debates within GeoSIG have been taking place over the past few months to crystallize our path for growth and increased market share. There is no secret in the fact that GeoSIG is at a phase where the topic of “growth” has become an everyday phrase in the company. The GeoSIG board of directors has listened to our partners, customers and stakeholders and decided to invest in and aggressively pursue a strategy based on producing more innovative high quality products, which is where our core strengths lie.
We have strong links with the scientific community and we proudly enjoy our association with them. They often support us and more importantly encourage us on the quest for improvement of our existing products and innovation of new instruments.
The board of directors at GeoSIG has made a decision to make changes at the top of our organisation. This change is to allow implementation of a strategy where the focus will be on commitment to long term investment and development of high quality products and lesser involvement and focus on trading. As our history demonstrates, our path has always been that of prudent and consistent growth. | Recognising all our staff, stakeholders, representatives, customers, suppliers; we take this responsibility very seriously and are committed to creating an appropriate environment for mutual growth and co-operation based on the trust which has been bestowed on us. Fulfilling our strategy which we focus on increasing the number of new products, the GeoSIG board of directors has agreed with Mr Christoph Kündig’s departure to follow his own vision and allow him to pursue his goals and objectives in a separate venture without any directcollaboration with GeoSIG, its customers and representatives.
Thus, the board has appointed Johannes Grob and Serge Rudaz who you have known for many years as joint managing directors of GeoSIG. This change will ensure that GeoSIG’s leadership is based on a solid foundation and proven track records of two of the most trusted and senior people at GeoSIG with significant experience and knowledge in all aspects of our business and market place.
With this communication we would like to reassure you that the management of GeoSIG with its key people shares the view that our direction is to continue on the path which has made us successful in the past 18 years and that effective leadership will provide new opportunities and showcase our vision to become world renowned manufacturers of innovative quality products in our market.
Mehdi Ghadimzadeh, Chairman | | News: GeoSIG Expansion | It is with great pleasure that we announce the further expansion of the world-wide network of GeoSIG representatives and welcome GeoMediciones (Chile), Scott Technical Instruments Limited (New Zealand) and Arsis Group and Sangari (Turkey). These valuable new partnerships will allow GeoSIG to increase our international activities and provide GeoSIG products and solutions directly to customers in these regions.
We are happy to welcome GeoMediciones, Scottech and Arsis to our network and look forward to a successful cooperation.
GeoMediciones - Instrumentación de Obras Civiles, founded in 1975 by Civil Engineering Contractor Claus Fahrenkrog Schmieder, has 35 years of experience in the field of providing monitoring equipment for civil engineering structures characterized by a high degree of competitiveness in quality, state-of-the-art into process integration and service. | Scottech (Scott Technical Instruments Limited) concentrates on providing professional, friendly and reliable service in the supply of their equipment. A privately owned and customer driven company has evolved and established in excess of 30 years, in the environmental instrumentation field. Scottech is the largest provider of environmental monitoring equipment and services in New Zealand, with branches in Hamilton in the North Island and Christchurch in the South Island and it is run by 28 employees.
Arsis Group was first established in 1984. Arsis Security Systems Industrial and Trade Corporation offers a wide range of products and services in different fields through six group companies.
Sangari is our expert partner for dam monitoring solutions and looks back at 24 years of experience in this field since it was established in 1986.
| | Solution Focus: Structural Health Monitoring on the Rise | More sophisticated structures are regularly being designed and built while existing structures keep aging. Therefore Structural Health Monitoring solutions become viable and cost efficient alternatives to expensive periodic inspection. Tremendous technological evolvement of sensor and communication technology as well as data acquisition systems has produced advanced technology to monitor important structures and their serviceability.
Employing Structural Health Monitoring can mitigate risks which endanger public safety. It also provides an optimised framework to manage quality of infrastructures such as serviceability, reliability, and usability. Insurance companies have recently realized the benefits of Structural Monitoring and begin demanding their clients to employ this technology.
In the state of California, structures are monitored by CSMIP (California Strong Motion Instrumentation Programme). Similar regulatory bodies also exist in Singapore, Panama, and so forth. | In-situ monitoring performance of structures in response to environmental factors such as ground acceleration, wind, pressure, unusual loads, humidity and temperature allow engineers to conduct explicit risk assessment and identify potential failures in a timely manner. This is appreciated by insurance companies and is rewarded by reductions in premiums
With projects such as the monitoring of the Oeresund Bridge, GeoSIG has made a name for itself within the industry as a respected supplier of such monitoring systems, and will continue to do so through its commitment to long term investment in and development of high quality new products. | | GeoSIG on World Stage | Several members of the GeoSIG team and partners have been actively participating in conferences and events during this summer, representing GeoSIG at the 9th US National and 10th Canadian Conference on Earthquake Engineering in Toronto,
Canada, the AGU Meeting of the Americas in Iguassu Falls, Brazil, the 14th European Conference on Earthquake Engineering in Ohrid, Macedonia and the European Seismological Commission 32nd General Assembly in Montpellier, France. This year's biggest event, however, is still to come: The 2010 AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco, USA (December 13 to 17), where we will be exhibiting as well.
These events have been a great opportunity for GeoSIG to meet partners, for example Mr Ney Magalhães from NT Brazil with whom we had the pleasure to exhibit at the AGU meeting in Brazil, as well as customers from all around the world, to cultivate existing and strike up new friendships, and to strengthen further our relations with the scientific community. | We have happily received much positive feedback on the performance of our systems from all over the world. Through a number of valuable contacts that we have made on these recent conferences, GeoSIG will be able to further extend its network of partners throughout the world.
The GMS-Netquakes Recorder that GeoSIG developed initially for strong motion network projects, carried out by the USGS in Northern California (among other places) attracted numerous visitors to our booths in order to see it performing live. We presented a highly appreciated insight into its innovative design and ground-breaking capabilities, as the increasing interest in this versatile instrument’s use for other applications such as Structural Monitoring, clearly show. |
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| Product Focus: Outstanding and Unique - The GMS Netquakes Recorder |
Since the success of the USGS NetQuakes programme, the GMS has become a reference within the industry for seismic recorders. In the application field of Structural Health Monitoring, the GMS is equally setting standards regarding quality, reliability and priceperformance-ratio.
The versatility of this outstanding Instrument is remarkable, as the range of possible applications is wide, from earthquake and seismic measuring and monitoring to monitoring of bridges, high rise buildings, tunnels, dams, railways etc. Designed and developed for and according to USGS specifications, its numerous innovative and unique features make the GMS state-of-the-art in the new generation of earthquake instrumentation.
Some of these unique features include:
• Intelligent battery management
• Intelligent “Real Time Clock (RTC) with selflearning temperature compensation
• Independent sampling rates on each channel
• Ability to create on remote user request an event from any time within the ringbuffer data
• Fully configurable trigger filters for each trigger independently
• Virtual channels with online processing: Vector sum, filter, decimate, integrate, peak/average detection
• The recorded channels can be different from the monitored channels depending on the trigger algorithm
• User defined policy for data storage management
• Possibility to have more than one output stream
• Communication to all deployed instruments without fixed IP’s
• Auto detection of all the instruments in the LAN by the server software
• Can send short notice with peak ground motion parameters just after trigger
• Easy interface to any user developed software as all operational commands are based on XML/ASCII files |
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| Partner Focus: Don Blair, Nuclear Logistics, Inc. USA |
GeoSIG’s success comes from strong links and association with many high profile representatives and partners throughout the world. One of our specialist partners, Mr. Don Blair from Nuclear Logistics, Inc. USA has kindly given us an overview of our partnership.
Nuclear Logistics is very pleased with the results of our first system upgrade working with GeoSIG for a US Nuclear Generating Plant. The project involved the replacement of older equipment originally supplied by Terra Technologies, but was much more detailed and complicated because we also provided a training system for I&C maintenance and a duplicate system for the plant simulator. The simulator portion of the contract required software modification to enable the GeoDAS to communicate with the simulator interface.
The completion of this project positions us well for future activity in the US nuclear market. In addition to the market experience gained by the project we also now have a baseline that includes seismic qualification of the hardware. Perhaps more importantly the software verification and validation performed by Nuclear Logistics to address US guidelines also provides US nuclear plants the assurance that software upgrades will be controlled and documented, thus assuring continuing support of the system in the future.
As I write this article I am enjoying the warmth of the fireplace in my cabin located near Quartz Creek in Cooper Landing, Alaska. I have the good fortune to be with family for two weeks of relaxation and fishing before returning to the heat in Cincinnati, Ohio. With luck I will once again have an abundance of salmon to add to the venison from the past Fall hunting season. I have also been able to enjoy several of the excellent beers that are brewed locally in Alaska and hope to include a round or two of golf before leaving. | My involvement in the US nuclear industry began in 1989 and has included a broad range of sales and support activities covering nearly all aspects of plant operations including electrical, instrumentation and control, HVAC, valves, actuation, and of course seismic monitoring. My relationship with GeoSIG began as a consequence of seeking support to repair a circuit card that was part of a GNC system supplied by Terra Technologies for one of my clients in the US mid-west.
As with all projects since that time I have been impressed with the responsiveness of GeoSIG personnel and also with the level of detail with any provided documentation.
Recently Oleg Razinkov provided support to trouble-shoot problems with a free field sensor for one of my key accounts. We have been able to help the client resolve a short term concern, but also developed a rapport with the client that I believe will result in a new replacement system in the near future. Oleg was also able to gain a real appreciation for some of the regulatory and procedural hurdles that are the normal situation in the US nuclear industry and which complicate our pursuit of new business opportunities.
Thanks to all of the personnel within GeoSIG that have been so helpful and responsive. I look forward to the opportunity to provide new business activity and perhaps in the near future a chance to meet all of you in Switzerland.
Best Regards....
Don Blair
Site Manager. Nuclear
Logistics, Inc. USA
Russian River, Alaska |
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| New Faces at GeoSIG: Florian Gegier |
It is a great pleasure to welcome Florian Gegier to GeoSIG who has recently joined to support the Sales & Marketing Department. Florian has a colourful international background and a degree in International Relations from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra, Portugal; where he has gained a diverse knowledge in business operations and international relations.
Florian has brought with himself not only a solid business background but also excellent language skills. He speaks Portuguese fluently as well as German, English, Spanish and French. This gives the sales and marketing team the ability to open up new channels of communications with our customers in their native language.
Florian so far has attended 3 exhibitions and was thrown in at the deep end so to speak. He has survived the ultimate test with flying colours and his dynamic and energetic approach to sales and marketing is already sending tremors which we are having to use our best instruments to record them! |
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| | Call for Articles | Dear GeoWatch Readers,
GeoWatch aims to communicate GeoSIG’s product information as well as industry related news and information with a wide community of readers in commercial and non-commercial organisations. In an attempt to make this newsletter more interactive we are inviting our readers to publish articles in GeoWatch.
Please feel free to contact us with questions or suggestions. Your input is warmly welcome.
Suggestions for topics:
• How has Structural Monitoring evolved in the last 10 years?
• Why is Structural Monitoring being legislated in some countries?
• Why are insurance companies interested in Structural Monitoring?
Conditions:
No costs or credits are associated with submittal. This is a non-binding offer to any party. More then one article can be submitted. The article(s) must be original and by submitting you are authorising GeoSIG to publish the article by any means. GeoSIG will choose the most interesting and relevant article(s) for publication. The author(s) of the selected article(s) for publication will receive a “Swatch” watch as a gift.
Email your article(s) in MS Word format to marketing@geosig.com. |
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