Special Report and Whitepaper Library

Listening to your customer is key when designing a new product

As a manufacturer, we are always striving to create products that we believe to be what the end users desire. The technology around which our lives revolve these days has had a strong influence over what we expect from products in every area of life. For instance, I have my smartphone, tablet and laptop; I have high speed access to information and data via the internet. Hardware is easily charged, memory is plentiful and expandable, quality is good and costs are reasonable. So, these are the standards I expect from the equipment I am about to use when hydrographic surveying. Valeport has led the way in sound velocity technology for more than a decade and our latest addition to the portfolio, the SWiFT SVP, was designed from the outset with customer feedback front of mind and a practical understanding of what customers actually want from an instrument.

WHOI scientists partner with Rhode Island fishermen to understand rapid changes in Gulf Stream-dominated east coast shelf waters

In 2011, oceanographer Glen Gawarkiewicz sat in the back row at a National Science Foundation (NSF) public hearing about the upcoming installation of a vast and long-term ocean monitoring system, called the Ocean Observatories Initiative Pioneer Array (Pioneer Array). The chosen location, right off the coastal waters of New England, meant the array could interfere with fishing and shipping, and there was concern that the science generated by the array could be used to force fisheries closures. The people whose livelihoods depend on this ocean region were at the hearing and they meant to be heard. “There was a very crowded room in the public library in New Bedford,” recalls Gawarkiewicz, “and there were some contentious moments.” He was sitting next to a woman he hadn’t yet met, and Gawarkiewicz remembers one of them said to the other, “There’s got to be a better way than this.”

Valeport

From surface to seafloor, Valeport innovative profilers are shaping the future of surveying

Mapping the Channel of the Colorado River in Grand Canyon

Kraken

Seeing With Sound