Mach85 and its 3D measurement technology wins delegates’ votes at CCA Annual Conference
New Brunswick-based engineering firm Mach85 won top honours at a CCA Annual Conference session on March 9, 2022.
The Innovator’s Pitch involved three 2021 CONtact mentees presenting their innovative product or service to a panel of judges with the audience voting on the innovation they would be most excited to see implemented in the industry.
Mach85’s 3D measurement technology is revolutionizing the infrastructure sector when it comes to bridge inspections, load ratings, and structural health monitoring.
By combining non-contact 3D measurement techniques with drones and Artificial Intelligence (AI), Mach85 has made these once impractical measurements, not just practical, but fast and incredibly accurate.
Now in its fourth year, the CCA CONtact mentorship program has connected over 25 innovators with construction industry experts for a series of mentorship sessions designed to provide feedback on the entrepreneur’s product or service solution. Mentors share their insights on value, price, features, distribution, feasibility, or any other element that will improve the likelihood of its adoption in the market.
“A market analysis showed that there is a global crisis in infrastructure as assets are nearing the end of their design life. Owners are trying to determine the health of the assets and are having difficulty prioritizing which need replacing or repairs and which can be deferred to future years,” said Shaun Kennedy, President and CEO, Mach 85. “We saw the huge potential in this and therefore decided to focus the next several years on developing a solution to this problem.”
One of the main benefits of Mach85’s innovation is that it allows for measurements to be taken everywhere over entire surfaces as opposed to just taking a few measurements at locations where one thinks the worst-case scenarios might be. It is also much easier and cheaper to do than installing traditional gauges over numerous locations. Mach85 also allows for incredibly small deflection measurements to be taken over long distances, which has been used to measure deflections over large spans of bridges as well as monitoring for movement in walls.
“In general, our innovation provides more data, higher quality data, and is a fraction of the cost and time as traditional methods.”
Shaun Kennedy, President and CEO, Mach 85
Following discussions held with mentors and at the conference, Kennedy believes there is also a place for their application in vertical infrastructure. “There are so many possible applications for our technology that deciding which ones to focus on first will be my next big decision for the company. The mentorship program has given me a great place to start my market research focus.”
CCA’s CONtact mentorship program opens in July. Visit cca-acc.com to learn more about the program and follow us on social media for application date announcements.