David Horne at new Mowi Scotland's Remote Operations Centre. He was the first employee to work at ROC.
Photo: Mowi Scotland.
Mowi Scotland's new Remote Operations Centre (ROC) is already up and running from its Farms Office in Fort William. After this opening, the company will be able to feed its seawater farm sites from a centralized location, ensuring that feeding strategies are optimized.
Since the launch, there has been a team of 12 operators - in two six-person rotating shifts working every other week - behind the controls of the new fish-feeding centre. David Horne was the first employee to work at Mowi Scotland's ROC.
"I have been working in the centre for a month now and have been impressed with the technology," he stated. "There are six of us working on each shift and each operator will feed three to four farms, with the aid of pellet recognition technology, when we’re fully operational."
"We work closely with the staff on the farms to ensure everything is working as it should and if any issues arise at sea with the cameras. Constant communication between us helps keep everyone on the farms safe and our fish well looked after and healthy," he continued explaining.
Currently, three farms are being monitored and fed from the ROC in Fort Willian - Leven, which is 18 km away; Linnhe, which is 15 km away; and Gorsten, which is 7 km away -. The objective is to add all four Croabh Haven sites (75 km away) and Kingairloch (35 km away) by the end of August and, over time, Mowi expects all its Scotland's mainland seawater farms will be fed from there.
The remote fish-feeding operations centre will keep feeding regimes consistent, ensuring that fish can be fed and monitored at all times. As the company highlighted, it will do so even during adverse weather conditions when it would be too dangerous for on-site staff to feed the fish.
"As with any new systems or infrastructure, there are some learning curves along the way as we get fully up and running but the ROC will provide huge benefits to our feeding strategies, fish health and wellbeing, and for the health and safety of our farming staff," explained Kris Wright, Team Leader for the ROC. "I worked on farms myself for eight years so it’s great to be able to work with them through the ROC and the exciting technology we have here."
Both Horne and Wright stressed that working on an every-other-week rotation means they can enjoy a good work/life balance. As said, they currently work 12-hour shifts, but this will be reduced to 8-hour shifts as the days get shorter.