Operational Readiness Review
An independent check of whether the vessel, the people and the operating system are ready to deploy.
Uncrewed Maritime Consulting
From prototype to deployed operation.
Most uncrewed vessel programmes do not stall on the engineering. They stall on the operating procedures, the contingency plan, the control centre and the case a regulator or client will actually accept. That is the gap UMC closes.
The vessel is the easy part
Hardware is rarely what holds a programme up. It is the procedures, the crewing, the approvals and the handovers - the things nobody budgets for.
You only get one first deployment
Problems found alongside are cheap. The same problems found offshore, with a client watching, are not. We would rather find them early.
Eight years in a sector that is barely ten
Most teams are still on their first uncrewed programme. We have been at it since the start of the sector, so we tend to know where the trouble begins.
Getting a yes
Flag, class and the harbour master will approve an uncrewed vessel. They want it explained in their language, by people who will sit there and answer the questions.
What UMC does
UMC is an independent uncrewed maritime operations consultancy. It works with USV builders, survey and inspection contractors, offshore wind and subsea teams, defence and government programmes, and the ports that host them - organisations that have a vessel, or are about to have one, and need to operate it for real.
The work is practical: procedures people will follow on a bad day, a remote operations centre that runs to a watch routine, trials that produce evidence rather than opinions, competence you can prove, and an approval case that holds up in front of flag, class, a harbour master or a client.
Why programmes stall
The engineering usually arrives first. Then someone asks who is in control, what happens when the link drops, how you know the operator is competent, who signed off the lift, and what the harbour master has been told. Those answers are a different discipline, with their own failure modes and their own approvers, and they are rarely anybody's full-time job until the schedule is already slipping.
UMC is the person who has stood in the control centre at three in the morning deciding whether to continue, hold or recover, and then written down how that decision gets made.
Services
Five core themes and four specialist services. Most engagements start with a readiness review and go where the findings point.
Core services
Concept of Operations Development
The first document every approval route asks for, written so it answers the questions rather than raising them.
Vessel Commissioning and Sea Trials
A structured route from a finished build to a vessel that has been proven, accepted and handed over.
Remote Operations Centre Design
A control centre that runs to a watch routine, with roles, authority and continuity designed in before the first shift.
Regulatory and Stakeholder Engagement
The approval case, the flag and class route, and the conversations with ports and authorities that decide whether you operate.
Delivery and leadership
Deployment and Mobilisation Support
Getting a vessel, a team and a shore base into a new port and operating safely, on schedule.
Remote Operations and Mission Support
Experienced operational leadership on the end of the link while the mission is actually running.
Operator Training and Competence
A competence framework and training material that stands up when someone asks how you know your operators are capable.
Operational Troubleshooting and Recovery
Help when a programme has stopped working and the reasons are not all technical.
Fractional Operations Director
Senior operations leadership on a set number of days a month, before you can justify the hire.
Client-Side USV Representation
Your operator in the room, on your side of the table, while somebody else builds and sells you a vessel.
Who UMC works with
Different buyers, the same underlying problem: engineering readiness is not operational readiness.
- USV builders and integratorsMoving from demonstration to delivery.
- Hydrographic and ocean mappingLong endurance, remote control at range, data that survives review.
- Survey, inspection and offshore contractorsUncrewed vessels alongside a crewed fleet.
- Offshore wind and subseaSite survey, cable route, UXO and inspection.
- Defence and governmentExperimentation into something operable and assured.
- Ports, harbour authorities and trials sitesJudging an operator's case without a rulebook that fits.
- Research and academiaScience vessels that still need permission to sail.
Three shapes of engagement
Scope and price agreed in writing before anything starts. The first conversation costs nothing.
A short review
A few days looking at what you have, ending in a findings register split into blocking, conditional and advisory, with an owner and a route to close each one.
A fixed piece of work
A CONOPS, a procedure set, a ROC specification, a trials campaign, a regulatory roadmap. Scope, output and price agreed in writing before anything starts.
Retained days
A set number of days a month as your acting head of USV operations, or across a bid, a mobilisation or a capability build. Month by month, with a notice period.
Framed against what your reviewer will have open
Approval routes for uncrewed vessels are still being written, so the burden of proof sits with the operator. Work is framed against the published material an approver actually uses, and against the equivalent national route where a programme sits outside UK waters.
UMC does not grant approval and does not speak for any authority.
- MCA Workboat Code
- MUKRWG Code of Practice for uncrewed vessels
- IMO MSC.1/Circ.1604 - MASS trials
- IMCA guidance
Also available
Operator Toolkit Packs
Six editable Word and Excel document packs written from hands-on USV operations: SOPs, contingency and emergency response, trials and commissioning, remote operations centre setup, CONOPS and mission planning, mobilisation and lifting. Licensed to your organisation, yours to rebrand and put to work.
For teams that need the documents now and the consultancy later.
USV Standard Operating Procedures SetGBP 600USV Contingency and Emergency Response SetGBP 600USV Trials and Commissioning PackGBP 750Remote Operations Centre Setup PackGBP 750USV CONOPS and Mission Planning PackGBP 500USV Mobilisation, Lifting and HSSE PackGBP 500
USV Operating Framework BundleGBP 2,500
Where are you stuck?
A paragraph about your vessel and what is in the way is enough to start. Reply within two working days.