National Marine Facilities Sea Systems
National Marine Facilities Sea Systems (NMFSS) was established in September 2005 and draws together a wide range of services and capabilities to support marine scientific research in an impartial and transparent way across the whole UK marine science community. The NMFSS mission is to develop, coordinate and provide capabilities, platforms and expertise to meet the needs of UK marine science. Delivery of the mission is provided through 3 key services:
- The multi disciplinary Royal Research Ships Discovery and James Cook.
- The National Marine Equipment Pool
- A team of technicians and engineers providing specialist support to NERC research cruises on both the NMFSS ships and other vessels.
These undertake the majority of the NERC Marine Facilities Programme (MFP). On average this amounts to approximately 30 cruises a year of which some 20 cruises are mounted on NMFSS vessels with the balance taking place on a wide range of other vessels. Most of this additional activity is undertaken on ships provided through international barter agreements as well as some time on British Antarctic Survey vessels when specialist equipment and technical support is required.
The MFP requires the organisation to operate on a global scale , the complexity of which relies on close liaison between the functional groups at NOC and marine and technical staff at sea. Fundamental to successful support of this is a close working relationship between NMFSS and NERC Marine Planning with much of the detailed work being delegated to NMFSS. Each cruise is managed as a project by NMFSS staff through a comprehensive science delivery plan developed through close liaison with the lead scientist. This plan is based on a cradle to grave approach including: costing, logistics and freight, planning of port calls, arranging diplomatic clearance, allocating the correct combination of staff skills, preparation of equipment, procurement of new equipment, spares and consumables, mobilisation and demobilisation, day to day support during each cruise, and finally provision of data and reports to the UK’s marine data centre.
Delivery of each cruise draws on the functional groups in NMFSS responsible for discrete elements of capability. Broadly this is aligned with management of the ships and the scientific engineering support groups (deep platforms, sensors and moorings etc.). A range of common services including workshops, calibration, logistics and extensive storage facilities provide essential and comprehensive support functions for the cruise programme.
