Page 31 - Signal Winter 2019

There were companies providing some pieces but not the complete jigsaw. We saw an opportunity to develop a company whose function is to ‘simplify machine reliability’, hence ARQ Asset Solutions was established.
Today we assist companies in the pharmaceutical, power generation and marine industries to improve their machine reliability in turn reducing maintenance overheads and increasing productivity. We do this by conducting a through life audit of the condition of a client’s oils and greases; from procurement, storage, in-service application and disposal. We identify areas where the client can improve the condition through contamination control, such as filtering regimes and ingress protection. Our clients who have adopted these measures have significantly reduced the instances of unplanned maintenance routines, extended the oil change intervals in their machinery and given them more confidence to operate their machinery for extended production runs.
What were the best things about your time in the Naval Service and how do you look back on your time in the military?
For me the best elements were the camaraderie, sense of humour and the people. We both worked with some of the best and brightest personnel from all branches and ranks created a great sense of teamwork onboard ship and in units ashore. I will always look back on my time in the Defence Forces in a positive light. If it weren’t for my time serving in the Naval Service I wouldn’t have gained the experience and skills that have enabled me to be a co-founder in a niche successful engineering company, working with high value companies in improving their equipment availability and reliability for production.
How have the skills that you learned in the Defence Forces served you well in the private sector?
The use of planning and execution skills in establishing and developing a company was invaluable, particularly in terms of developing relationships with customers. The attention to detail that is necessary in the military also served us well when it came to fine-tuning processes to build sales funnels and deliver a quality service to customers. We also used analytical skills in solving complex and often seemingly impossible problems, a frequent challenge in the military.
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Why do you believe that Defence Forces Officers are regularly in such high demand by those within the private sector?
The wealth of experience gained through serving as an Officer ashore, afloat and overseas has honed capabilities such as teamwork and strategic thinking to allow the assessment of a situation and the establishment of a clear plan with attention to detail. Clear communication is also vital, as is the ability to adapt to a situation as it unfolds. Initiative and motivation is also fundamental to military life as is the ability to deal with setbacks and build resilience. Leadership is also something which any business requires, so to know how to identify good leadership traits and adapt them is something that is very valuable.
How do you hope to see ARQ develop in the short to medium term?
In the short term we hope to continue to establish ourselves in the following key markets; pharma, power generation and marine. Currently we are working on an Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) oil condition sensor hub that pushes machine performance data to the cloud and can alert machine owners/operators/technicians of a change in operating profile and potential failures.
Our IIoT solution will be rolled out on test in some of our customer sites over the coming months. In the medium Term we are hoping to attract investment into ARQ, to allow for the growth of the company. This would lead to expansion of our IIoT offering, enabling us to increase our number of staff.
ARQ are an Enterprise Ireland client company, and have enjoyed an impressive start. They won the Munster final and were all- island finalists of the Intertrade Ireland Seedcorn competition 2018. They are also part of the Interreg ProtoAtlantic program for technology development in marine sector for Small & Medium Enterprises. In September 2019 they were shortlisted in the Sunday Business Post Top 100 Startups.
For further information: www.arq.ie
Lt Cdr (Ret’d) Ronan Carey and Lt Cdr (Ret’d) Conor O’Sullivan.
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