4c Engineering

We're turning 10! 🎂 🥳 On December 17th, we'll be celebrating 10 years since the company was founded. To mark the occasion, we're sending out an open invitation to stop by and join us for some cake at our office. If you're a past or current client, you work on the Campus or just fancy trying some of Andy Hall's home baking, come along between 2pm and 3pm. If you can, sign up here to help us manage numbers (and make sure we don't run out of cake!), however you're more than welcome to turn up on the day: https://lnkd.in/eBxaFpmQ 🗓️ Date: 17th December ⌚ Time: 14:00-15:00 🗺 Solasta House, 8b Inverness Campus, Inverness IV2 5NA

Are you involved in the offshore wind supply chain? Are you attending the UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight on 10th December? Can you run 5k? A week today our Managing Director, Andy Hall is going to be at the UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight. He's going to be heading out on an early run before the event - if anyone wants to join him on a tour of the Docklands area, check out his post for more details! It's 5.7 km, with options to cut it shorter if needed. He won't leave anyone behind! Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult Offshore Wind Growth Partnership #runewables #spotlightonsupplychain

We’re exhibiting at the UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain 2024! Our Managing Director Andy Hall will be down at ExCeL London for this event on the 10th of December as we exhibit how we work with companies in the offshore wind supply chain. He'll no doubt be planning a pre-event early morning 5k while he's there, check out his LinkedIn feed for details nearer the time. The event, organised by Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult and Offshore Wind Growth Partnership will shine a spotlight on the outstanding innovation and excellence within the UK’s offshore wind supply chain, the event will bring together senior political and industry leaders, investors and procurement specialists with many of the UK’s leading supply chain companies currently benefitting from ORE Catapult and OWGP supply chain growth programmes. Join us in London on the 10th of December, click here to register now: UK Offshore Wind Supply Chain Spotlight 2024 (https://lnkd.in/gTpPD_yM) A big thank you to all the event sponsors: Ørsted, EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG, Equinor, BlueFloat Energy, ScottishPower Renewables, West of Orkney Windfarm, Scottish Renewables, NOF, RenewableUK, Innovate UK #spotlightonsupplychain

so, Ocean Energy Europe conference attendees... any ideas what Andy is bringing along today? Come see us at stand 28 to find out!

We're here at Ocean Energy Europe OEE24, and Andy Hall has brought some homemade shortbread to welcome the world of marine renewables to the Highlands. One of our first visitors was actually a local shortbread connoisseur, Stuart Black of Highlands and Islands Enterprise. He seemed quite pleased with it! There is plenty more, so please do drop round for a handmade taste of this local delicacy, stand 28.

Yesterday we were pleased to take part in a stakeholder engagement event and networking reception co-hosted by Scottish Renewables and Highlands and Islands Enterprise. Attended by 4cE directors Andy Hall and Peter Macdonald, we were able to speak and hear about the challenges faced and the opportunities available, to the energy sector supply chain in the Highlands & Islands. Government representation from Allan Taylor and Craig Egner was able to update participants on upcoming publications and priorities of the UK and Scottish Governments. They noted the Strategic Spatial Energy Plan which was launched yesterday, the soon to be released implementation of Clean Power 2030 Action Plan, driven by Chris Stark and the Scottish Government's recently released Offshore Wind focus paper. There was much discussion of barriers to investment and growth, challenges around skills availability and lack of housing - welcoming SSE Transmission's recent commitment to supporting the building of 1,000 new homes, linked to their investment in grid infrastructure. At the later networking event, we were welcomed by Emma Harrick before hearing from David Oxley of HIE who spoke about the need to build up the skills base in the region (will we see him retraining and donning a welder's mask?) and the US Consul General Kathryn Porter who spoke about the importance of international collaboration. Peter and Andy took the opportunity to discuss with her the collaboration that 4c Engineering have been carrying out with US based partners, highlighting our recent success in the US Dept. of Energy's InDEEP competition.

Last week I posted some thoughts on the Offshore Wind Scotland DeepWind cluster event on steel floating substructures. There was no rest the following day as a second DeepWind event was taking place at The National Robotarium at the Heriot-Watt University campus - this time the Survey & Inspection subgroup were hosting an Automation & Robotics workshop in what was an ideally suited venue. [TL;DR] - the improving sensor & platform capability is impressive - big challenges to ensure accuracy & quality remains as we efficiently process ever growing volumes of data. Increasing use of AI will feature - but how to ensure the training set is good enough? The event was opened by Mike Ellis of Sonardyne International Ltd before Naomi Battison who welcomed us to the National Robotarium and Andrew Pratt of North of Scotland KTP Centre spoke about what was on offer to companies from KTP. The opening presentation was by Joe Tidball of Beam - formerly Rovco/Vaarst who updated us on the change of branding and the latest news on their fleet of vessels and robots. Of note was their new Xplorer 18 ASV, a hybrid for autonomous operation with the option to be fully crewed. René Rasmussen of MacArtney Underwater Technology Group took us through the Focus 3 ROTV and the eBOSS system. Chris Almond of Kraken Robotics gave examples of their survey offering, focussing mainly on their acoustic coring technology - definitely a presentation that works best with videos! In the afternoon, we heard from Aspect Land & Hydrographic Surveys Ltd, GEOxyz, BeeX who all spoke about the capabilities of their ROVs/fleet. They were followed by John Houlder of Sonardyne International Ltd who spoke about the importance of accuracy in a true north seeking capability and the importance of post processing your data to ensure maximum accuracy. The final presentation came from Melissa Sandison, PhD who spoke about the support and resources available at Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult DARE facility. It was nice to see the SEAJET kit we'd worked on the analysis of appearing in the video she shared. They're planning a demonstration event in November with live demos featuring several of the companies who presented at this workshop. My final thoughts: the improving quality of data available from sensors and platforms is impressive, it highlights the need for - and value - that can be be driven from smart, optimised post-processing analysis techniques. AI techniques are certainly a compelling option, however, many speakers noted that building a high quality set of training data is not straightforward (or cheap) for these challenging subsea conditions. Automation will certainly be important in the future, allowing companies to do more with the same headcount - the challenge will be ensuring quality and accuracy doesn't drop. Thanks as always to Paul O'Brien for his compering of the event and to the caterers for the most impressive pastry selection I've ever seen at a business event!

Andy has shared some of his thoughts from day 1 of his Edinburgh trip to some DeepWind cluster events. Stay tuned for day 2, hearing about automation, AI and robotics for survey and inspection. #offshorewind

Our director, Andy Hall likes to get out on early morning runs when he's away on work trips. Today he managed to double up his run with some engineering sightseeing, crossing an aquaduct named after the engineer who first described solitons or "waves of translation".

It was great to host delegates of the A3 Conference and also to see the autonomous crop sprayer in action.