MON-IT is a group of companies dedicated to the creation, design and customization of innovative measurement systems for any type of application. Using state-of-the-art digital technologies, materials and processes developed in pioneering sectors for the benefit of our customers.
Interview with Paolo Persi del Marmo, General Manager at MON-IT Group.
Easy Engineering: A brief description of the company and its activities.
Paolo Persi del Marmo: The Mon-it Sas group, based in Paris, is an international team based on three pillars including NTSG Italia, based in Rome and Fibre Security BV, based in Amsterdam.
The three companies have different tasks.
Mon-it oversees the strategic development of the market and the group’s international activities.
Fibre Security has the task of developing business for the entire group.
NTSG Italia, on the other hand, is responsible for developing the technology of its solutions as well as marketing them in Italy.
Mon-It holds the licenses of the patents OFSystem and OFPipe with which it presents itself on the market by offering new technological solutions, unique and highly sophisticated, to measure the stress conditions and other physico-chemical, mechanical and hydraulic parameters, of structures belonging to different fields of engineering.
E.E: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
P.P.d.M: The OF System can potentially monitor any large structure: buildings, towers, bridges, tunnels, highways, railways, runways, dams, docks. In the Energy sector, we can monitor cables, trellises, transformers, powerplants. With the OF Pipe patent, we also can control fluid flows in the Oil&Gas sector, acqueducts and sewage systems. We are also developing applications for the aerospace, automotive and nautical sectors.
E.E: What’s the news about new products?
P.P.d.M: What’s new in our offer are our two patents and the fact that we develop the structures interpretation models with the AI patterns studied by us and integrated on our IoT platform.
The patent OF System (Optical Fibre) is born in 2015. It is a 2D and 3D deformation measurement system for structures having a form, material and generic dimensions, based on fibre optic technology, with the aim of determining and monitoring the stresses in the structure and detecting parameters such as compression, stretching, bending, loading, twisting, vibration, pressure, displacement, corrosion, inclination, temperature and current levels.
In 2018 we filed a new patent called OF Pipe, a system for identifying and measuring the losses of a conduit (water, sewage, oil, gas), based on optical fiber sensing technology, with the aim of identifying the presence, position, dimension of a leak present in the duct.
Both systems rely on our proprietary software that calculates in real time the quantities of interest using data interpretation models verified and certified by the CNR – Centro Nazionale Ricerche (Italy’s National Research Center).
Paolo Persi del Marmo, General Manager at MON-IT Group.
E.E: What are the main goals of your systems?
P.P.d.M: The main goals of the OF System are:
- To check the structures, carrying out measurements in real-time using high sampling frequency, with a consequent identification of rapid stresses;
- To secure the facilities and the people who work in them or use them;
- To check the structural characteristics of materials of any kind and shape;
- To verify the behavior of a structure and validate the technical specifications;
- To monitor the wear and aging of the structures by detecting its mechanical and physicochemical characteristics variations.
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
P.P.d.M: Our system is completely innovative because it combines a consolidated technology (fibre optics) with AI and a proprietary software. The market is still dominated by traditional electric sensors and this is our main success point.
TRADITIONAL TECHNOLOGY
- Electrical sensors
- Active sensors
- Long-distance signal decay
- 3 cables to manage a single sensor
- Sensitive to weathering
“OF” TECHNOLOGY
- Optical fibres
- Passive sensors
- No signal loss
- Up to 160 sensors on a single fibre
- Immune to the environment
- Longevity (+50 years) + liabilities = Reduced maintenance costs
The benefits of our new technology are so evident that we are expanding our activities in several sectors. Clients ask us applications which go beyond our imagination and there is almost always a viable solution.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
P.P.d.M: For too long, monitoring and maintenance have been put on the back burner, and now that infrastructures are ageing, cases of emergency interventions with unsustainable risks and costs are multiplying. A recent Ministerial Decree of the Italian Government represents a decisive and fruitful turning point in the evolution of the approach to monitoring and we hope for a progressive adoption of the same indications by other EU countries.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2023?
P.P.d.M: In 2022 we have increased our investment in R&D by signing important partnerships to make our solutions richer and more complete, and to integrate them with other useful monitoring technologies. We have also launched a massive recruitment plan to strengthen us in Italy and abroad and be ready for a 2023 that promises to be very busy. Today, between employees and collaborators we are over thirty. We plan to double our staff in 2023 and are looking for engineers, software experts, architects. In the last four years we have won 37 contracts and have over 100 tenders in progress. In 2023 we aim to grow in France, England, Holland, the Balkans, Austria and Spain as well as in the Arab Emirates where we have three different partnerships.