news

Steve Vick International takes pride of place at IGEM Lions’ Lair event

March 10, 2017

What’s going on? was the title of the eighth IGEM London Showcase Event held on Thursday 23rd February 2017, where the keynote speaker was the Rt Honourable Lord Tebbit CH ; and Steve Vick International (SVI) took pride of place by winning the much-coveted Lions’ Lair innovation challenge with their new Digital Pressure Tester (now SMARTester™) for gas services.

The Digital Pressure Tester (now SMARTester™) was developed by the company as part of a Network Innovation Allowance (NIA) project with Wales & West Utilities who were seeking to replace the conventional water gauge test with a digital device which would ensure accuracy and provide traceable, auditable test records.

“The result”, explains Matthew Mclennan, SVI’s Mechanical Design Engineer, “is a hand-held Smart device that accurately senses the gas pressure and exports all the job data to the cloud database using wireless technology”.

Matthew had four minutes in the Lions’ Lair to expound on the new product and then answer questions from the three judges – Adam Gosnold (Chair) Executive Director of Morrison Utility Services, Michael Caulfield, Operations Director of McNicholas Construction and Steve Catlin, Head of Network Management, Distribution, SGN.

After due deliberation, the Digital Pressure Tester (now SMARTester™) was declared the winner and Matthew was presented with the Tommy McNicholas Shield by Michael Caulfield.

The event was organised by IGEM’s London, Southern and Eastern Section in conjunction with the Pipeline Industries Guild; EDF Energy sponsored the event. The evening also saw Section Chairman David Goodall of EDF–who played a key role in organising this and many other events–steps down after eight highly successful years in the role.

Despite the major travel disruption caused on the day by storm Doris, keynote speaker The Rt Honourable Lord Tebbit CH, former Cabinet Minister and Chairman of the Conservative Party, made it onto the platform to captivate the 90-strong audience.

The Digital Pressure Tester (now SMARTester™) has undergone rigorous trials and will be on general release shortly.