Soil Machine Dynamics focuses on expansion

Last year, the company’s turnover was £58 million, inclusive of its Shanghai operation, but the company has big plans to double that by 2025.

“We have been around for over 50 years now and have weathered many storms including the dot com crash and more recently, the pandemic,” said Mike Jones, chairman at SMD.

“What has helped our continued growth has been our focus on innovation and that has undoubtedly been because of our talented people.”

Bigger service offering

The company’s UK facilities on the Tyne won’t move, but it’s planning on opening a dedicated customer service centre and will need new people to support its growing number of clients.

It is also seeking to open a new R&D facility and will need engineers and software developers to ”shape the future” of its products and services.

Branching into a more service-led model is key for SMD. It recently announced a new framework agreement with client Van Oord, whereby it not only supplied its equipment for an offshore wind project in Taiwan, but was also on hand to repair and maintain the vehicles.

Given the challenging conditions in the emerging territory, this was vital in reducing downtime ensuring the project was completed within the client’s operational time scales.

SMD is also working hard on electrifying its vehicles. It has created its first electric ROV called Artemis that will be a major commercial product launch for the company this year.

”It’s been over three years in the making and we are finally at the point where it can be hired for use on commercial projects. Its patented technology gives accurate, real-time measurement of where cables have been placed deep below the seabed to protect them, which has not been possible with existing technology,” said Jones.

“It’s a very exciting time for SMD and we are determined to achieve our goals and continue to be pioneers in our field.”

Jones added that SMD also has other concepts for more electric vehicles and applications in the pipeline.