Survitec
Background:
Survitec is a trusted global leader in survival and safety solutions. We protect people by designing and manufacturing safety and survival equipment, enabling customers to operate in highly legislative markets effectively and safely. Pioneers in critical safety for over 160 years, we are always looking for applications to improve people’s survival.
A proud British success story, we have three UK centres of excellence and employ more than 1,000 highly-skilled people, with a further 2,000 globally. All of our innovation, design and IP are UK based. We are a leader in safety solutions for the Maritime, Military, Aviation and Government sectors.
The recent boom in the cruise industry’s ‘new build’ programme in the last several years has driven an unprecedented rate of development within MES. The cruise industry has fully embraced MES and there is no doubt that the commercial needs of the passenger vessel industry have influenced and spurred on MES development. More and more progressive and safety conscious operators are moving away for the old davitlaunched liferaft and lifeboat solutions and are moving towards the benefits offered by MES. This has been most notable among brands within the Carnival and RCI groups.
Large ferries and cruise vessels increasingly have pressures on side shell space as well as deck space. This is primarily because although vessels have become wider, they are in general already at or close to their maximum length.
In recent times, naval architects have been demanding more of this side shell space to be allocated for various uses such as the housing of alternative lifesaving equipment such as Fast Rescue Boats (FRB) or means of Rescue (MOR) apparatus, both of which are mandatory fitment on these class of vessels. This has the outcome of tending to reduce the space allocated for lifesaving equipment such as MES. In response to this, Survitec reduced its space requirement by more than 25%.
Reduction of costs is another industry focus. The numbers of crew required to operate MES is kept at a satisfactory minimum; keeping training simple and time relevant. Today our modern MES are almost fully automatic with the ability to be locally or bridge remote released. In most designs, the triggering of a MES launch requires the pressing of a release button or the pumping action of a handle, enabling the MES to deploy over the side, deploy its slide/chutes and inflate its primary liferafts ready for the crew to perform evacuation. Minimising human actions improves reliability, improves performance, increases crew confidence, minimises risk, increases success and improves evacuation capability. Earlier generation MES incorporating inflatable slide systems required much more crew interaction as after the slide and platform was deployed into position additional inflatable liferafts had to be launched, pulled into position and then secured to the slide landing platform, not an easy task when carried out under sea conditions in an emergency.
MES have been in commercial operation since 1979. The MarinArk ‘Mk 1’ in design since 1996 and commercial operation since 1998. MarinArk ‘Mk 2’ was launched after successful ‘rough sea’ trials in 2009.
Survitec continues to innovate in the area of evacuation and escape and is now getting ready to launch a new solution in 2018 with its new AES (Alterative Evacuation System) inflatable lifeboat.
Survitec has been designing and manufacturing liferafts and mass evacuation systems (MES) for many years in its factory in Dunmurry, Northern Ireland. The company is proud of its strong heritage in this field and has a track record of industry firsts and market-leading products in many safety categories including liferafts, pilot flight equipment and anti-G suits and submarine escape equipment among others. Many are designed and made in its military centre of excellence in Birkenhead, Merseyside
In the spirit of continuous innovation, Survitec’s Birkenhead-based innovation team has been working closely with customers in a series of cruise working groups to explore alternative evacuation and escape procedures on board, thus increasing safety and reducing operational costs. A new deployment suite and test centre was established in mid-2017 to accommodate this design project and a number of new engineering roles were created.
After an accelerated new product development (NPD) process, a brand new Alternative Evacuation System (AES) has been designed by Survitec to match the requirement currently met by lifeboats, but with enhanced capability and most importantly, improved safety offered by MES.
A chute or slide-based system with added propulsion would offer all the benefits of MES and lifeboats in one – high capacity, safe and rapid evacuation, improved operational safety, and propulsion away from danger. In 2018, Survitec looks forward to launching its AES inflatable lifeboat to the cruise market in a move that will revolutionise vessel design and passenger safety.
Survitec is proud to continue its mission as the world’s leading designer of lifesaving and evacuation appliances and is proud to be able to invest and innovate in this area, creating exciting new possibilities for a demanding customer base.
Winning would mean:
This would be a huge boost for the world-class design and manufacturing facilities of Dunmurry (Belfast, N Ireland) and Birkenhead (Merseyside) as it would recognise the extreme levels of dedication and detail that go into a design and production project of this scale.
It would also signal to the maritime industry that innovation and engineering in British business is very much alive and kicking, and infinitely capable of being at the forefront of innovation and new product design for a global market place and a highly discerning (and demanding) customer segment like the cruise industry.
Survitec actively champions engineering and manufacturing through its work with local schools and colleges on STEM subjects and we have also partnered with Titanic Belfast to encourage innovation and improve marine knowledge and awareness of marine safety to the next generation. Winning this award would further inspire our people to reach out to the young ambitious engineers of the future.