When natural disasters threaten the structural soundness of buildings and essential infrastructure, SENSR LLC, a company in Elkader, Iowa, ensures engineers have the information they need to keep people away from dangerous situations.
SENSR is in the business of measuring dynamics, or more simply, measuring the motion of an object.
SENSR’s equipment is leaving a positive impact on a wide variety of projects around the world- from ensuring the world’s tallest building is structurally sound, to testing the safety of roller coasters across the country, to monitoring the safe transport of important products and packages.
The company services more than 700 customers in more than 40 countries and on six continents.
SENSR’s primary market is in civil engineering and structural monitoring. In this arena, SENSR’s equipment is used to monitor and report data to project managers or engineers related to the integrity of a structure.
“It is important for a lot of industries to understand how movement and vibration impacts them,” said Chris Kavars, President and CEO of SENSR. “For instance, sometimes damage can obviously be seen, but oftentimes we can’t use the naked eye to identify how a structure withstands a natural disaster. This is where our equipment comes in. We help alert people when a structure is changing or behaving in a way it hasn’t before.”
The company’s technology can be found on structures located in areas prone to natural disasters and objects prone to collisions, such as bridges. The sensors are also found on things that require great attention to their structural integrity, such as tall buildings, aging structures or dams. Understanding how each one of these structures is moving or affected by its surroundings is vital to its existence.
The company also can monitor the shipment of an object and identify if the object has been handled appropriately. The level of shock that a SENSR piece of equipment measures determines if a package or product was safely delivered.
Several companies use SENSR products to ensure that the transport of microchips is handled properly. If the data reported by a SENSR piece of equipment registers above a certain level, a business would be alerted the microchip may be damaged.
With just seven employees, SENSR broke into the international market through its innovative efforts. The company is one of only a handful of top-tier suppliers in the market of measuring dynamics, but is the only one that combines inputs from the information technology sector.
SENSR’s USB sensors hook directly into a laptop and are web compatible with a data collection unit. The equipment can send e-mail alerts when something changes with a structure. All of these unique characteristics make SENSR’s products user-friendly and the reports easy to access and understand.
“We saw the opportunity with a new generation of sensing elements which had not been widely distributed in this market,” Kavars said. “Our products are designed to work with technology of the 21st century. Looking at this industry from a completely different perspective, we developed a product where everything you need is right there. You have your data and you can go.”
Not only is SENSR’s data accessible, but also affordable, since SENSR’s products often cost three to five times less than the cost of their competitors’ products.
These are some of SENSR’s diverse projects:
* Measuring vibrations at the top of the Burj in Dubai--the world’s tallest building
* Monitoring the delivery of equipment to be used for the CERN Large Hadron Collider-- a large underground scientific instrument spanning the border between Switzerland and France expected to revolutionize the study of physics
* Ensuring the safety of amusement park rides, including those at Disney World
* Assisting NASA with experiments related to glacier melt by measuring how big glacial dropoffs are
* Used in restoration efforts in the New York City Subway
* Measured structural integrity of the Roman Aqueducts in France
* Used in racing to review the performance of pit crews
* Used internally at UPS to ensure proper handling of packages and the smoothness of conveyors
* Accompanies wind turbine blades for Clipper Wind to ensure their safe transport
Kavars cites employees’ work ethic and the investment they put back into the organization as what he likes best about doing business in Iowa.
“Midwest people are dedicated and loyal, and that’s different from other places I’ve been,” Kavars said.
Kavars also gives high marks for Iowa’s location.
“Iowa is in the center of the U.S., so we can easily service all parts of the country. Because it takes the same amount of time to reach either coast, managing time is pretty easy,” he said.
