Martin Westover is co-founder and Operations Director of Signatrol Ltd, with more than two decades of experience in temperature and environmental data logging applications.

His experience covers temperature and relative humidity monitoring across a wide range of industries and applications, including food production, storage and transportation, pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution, healthcare, museums, libraries and archives, warehousing and logistics.

Today, Martin is responsible for the operational side of Signatrol, helping to ensure that products are manufactured and delivered efficiently. His current role, however, follows many years spent working directly with customers to understand their monitoring requirements and identify practical solutions to real-world data logging problems.

From electronics to data logging

Martin holds an HND in Electronic Engineering and an HNC in Electronic Engineering.

Before establishing Signatrol, he worked for Status Instruments as Data Logger Product Manager. His responsibility was to maintain and develop a comprehensive range of data logging products capable of providing solutions for a broad variety of monitoring applications. The range included both products manufactured in-house and equipment sourced from specialist third-party manufacturers.

This role provided experience not simply of individual data logger products, but of matching different technologies, sensors and monitoring approaches to the requirements of particular applications.

Founding Signatrol

In April 2004, Martin co-founded Signatrol with Brian Turner, previously Managing Director of Status Instruments.

While Brian concentrated on the day-to-day management of the new business, Martin took responsibility for sales and marketing of Signatrol's data logging products.

For approximately 15 years, this involved extensive direct contact with customers and site visits across many different industries. Applications ranged from relatively straightforward temperature recording to larger monitoring systems involving multiple locations, environmental parameters and operational requirements.

Much of this work was within food manufacturing, storage and transportation, pharmaceutical production, warehousing and logistics, museums and archives, and the UK's National Health Service.

That period established an approach to applications that remains important to Martin today: start with the customer's problem, not with the product.

Rather than selecting equipment simply because it was commercially attractive to sell, the objective was to understand what the customer actually needed to measure, why they needed to measure it, the environment in which the equipment would operate, and how the resulting information would be used.

Only then could an appropriate monitoring solution be recommended.

Practical experience of temperature monitoring

Over more than two decades at Signatrol, Martin has been involved in a wide variety of temperature and temperature-and-humidity monitoring applications.

These have included work with organisations throughout the food and pharmaceutical sectors, healthcare and the NHS, museums and heritage environments, logistics operations and other organisations where reliable environmental records are important.

The applications themselves can be very different.

A food producer may need evidence that products have remained within specified temperature limits. A pharmaceutical organisation may need reliable environmental records throughout storage or distribution. A museum may be concerned with the long-term effects of temperature and relative humidity on valuable collections. A warehouse may need to understand temperature variations across a large storage area rather than simply knowing the temperature at a single convenient measuring point.

Although all of these applications involve data logging, selecting the right equipment and locating sensors appropriately requires an understanding of what the measurements are intended to demonstrate.

This practical application experience informs Martin's contributions to Signatrol's technical articles and case studies.

Projects and product development

Martin's experience has included projects ranging from individual monitoring requirements to substantial multi-point systems.

One notable project involved environmental monitoring within the athletes' village for the London 2012 Olympic Games, demonstrating the scale and variety of applications for which environmental monitoring equipment can be required.

Signatrol has also developed dedicated data logging equipment for third parties alongside its own product range.

Although Martin is not responsible for the detailed electronic design of Signatrol products, his years of direct customer contact give him an important role in product development. His involvement concentrates particularly on understanding market expectations, customer requirements and the practical features that make monitoring equipment easier and more effective to use in real applications.

Calibration and measurement

Martin also has extensive experience of instrument calibration, dating back to his time at Status Instruments and continuing throughout his career at Signatrol.

Signatrol provides calibration services for its own equipment and for compatible third-party instruments, primarily covering temperature and temperature-and-humidity measurement.

Calibration is an important part of reliable environmental monitoring. Recording thousands of measurements is of limited value if there is insufficient confidence in the instrument producing them.

Martin's experience therefore extends beyond selecting and applying data logging equipment to the measurement and calibration considerations that underpin the quality of the resulting data.

International distribution and customer support

During his years managing Signatrol's sales activities, Martin was also responsible for establishing and managing a network of national and international distributors and resellers.

This provided exposure to applications and customer requirements beyond the UK market and helped Signatrol develop routes to support customers using its monitoring products in different countries and industries.

As Signatrol grew, the company appointed an additional sales engineer. Martin subsequently moved back towards an office-based role, managing the sales engineering function while taking greater responsibility for the operational side of the company.

He now serves as Operations Director, while retaining the application knowledge accumulated through many years of direct involvement with customers.

Sharing practical experience

Martin contributes to Signatrol's technical content, including case studies and articles covering temperature monitoring, data logging and their practical applications.

His approach to technical content follows much the same principle as his approach to customers: explain the problem first, understand what needs to be achieved and then consider the appropriate technology.

Signatrol's Temperature Monitoring Monthly publication provides an additional opportunity to examine real events and developments affecting temperature-monitored industries, including cold-chain failures, product recalls, regulation and good monitoring practice.

The intention is not simply to discuss data loggers as products, but to explain where and why monitoring matters and what can be learned from real applications.

Away from Signatrol

Martin's interest in measurement and environmental data doesn't stop at the office.

As a father of twin daughters, Martin can safely say that life away from work is rarely boring.

He operates a personal weather station and has developed his own weather forecasting application. The system uses historical information to refine forecast temperatures for local conditions, with the forecasting model developed and adjusted using approximately 12 months of collected data.

He is also a keen astrophotographer – another interest where accurate measurement, environmental conditions and rather a lot of data feature prominently.

A further interest is the cultivation of carnivorous plants, where temperature, light, humidity and growing conditions provide yet another opportunity for monitoring and experimentation.

Apparently, it is quite difficult to get away from sensors completely.

Qualifications

HND – Engineering (Electrical/Electronic) - Distinction in the Instrumentation Module
HNC – In Electronic Engineering

Areas of experience

Temperature data logging • Temperature and relative humidity monitoring • Instrument calibration • Food production and storage • Cold-chain applications • Pharmaceutical monitoring • Healthcare and NHS applications • Warehousing and logistics • Museum, library and archive monitoring • Environmental monitoring • Data logger product development and specification