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CANVAS REPLY INTRODUCTION

Visual Intelligence for defence and critical engineering

Showing engineers, operators and decision makers the right information, in the right format, at the perfect time.

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Miguel Alvarez

Partner

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A personal note

The right partner for turning engineering data into decisions.

We are a technology practice first. Our engineers, data specialists, UX researchers and designers work as one team, on complex and regulated problems: aviation, defence, utilities and critical infrastructure.

That is why we can take any data, from any source, whether it is asset and maintenance records, supply chain and stores, live telemetry, programme schedules or technical documents, and engineer it into the right format for the people who need it: maintainers, planners, programme leaders and the customer.

Our aim is simple. Build robust, measurable experiences that make the most of every medium, instrumented against the KPIs that matter to you, and deployed inside the security boundary you choose.

— Miguel & the Reply team

Explore our offering

The problem

Critical assets are complex, and the teams who keep them available are running more variables than any report can hold

Ships, submarines, vehicles, aircraft, dockyards and nuclear facilities: each one has thousands of parts, maintenance windows, supply chains, scarce skills and safety cases, managed across decades of service. Most of that picture reaches decision makers as last month's report. At the same time budgets are under pressure: the National Audit Office found the UK equipment plan £16.9 billion over its budget, so every hour of availability has to work harder. When a planner cannot see which asset, which system and which constraint a problem sits in, they cannot act on it in time. Showing the right things, in the right format, at the right moment is not decoration. It is what keeps assets available, people safe and programmes on track.

The problem

The gap in numbers

What complexity and poor visibility cost customers, engineers and programmes.

£16.9bn
Budget pressure

The UK equipment plan for 2023 to 2033 was forecast at £305.5 billion against a budget of £288.6 billion, the largest gap since the plan was first published.

11%
The cost of downtime

The world's 500 largest companies lose 11% of revenues to unplanned downtime, $1.4 trillion a year. Costs rose 62% since 2019 even as incidents fell.

6 of 8
Availability

Six of the Royal Navy's eight Type 23 frigates were active in April 2025, a ratio described as typical as ships cycle through maintenance.

40,000
Skills to find

The UK needs to fill 40,000 new nuclear jobs by 2030 across defence and civil programmes, doubling the current rate of recruitment.

50 / 50
Training goes synthetic

The RAF is aiming for an even split between synthetic and live flying on Typhoon, with most collective training moving into connected simulators.

2027
Digital by design

The Strategic Defence Review commits £1 billion to a digital targeting web by 2027, connecting sensors, deciders and effectors on a common data fabric. All 62 recommendations were accepted.

Our solution

Turning complex engineering and operational data into clear, interactive experiences that help engineers, operators and leaders make the right decision, from the programme board to the dockside.

OUR SOLUTION

Understand the audience, then show them what matters

We know the sector: decisions are made at every level, from the enterprise to the platform to the part. The right visual layer understands what each person is responsible for and serves them exactly what they need to make the right decision.

What the gap costs you

  • Availability lost to problems that were in the data but invisible to the people who could act
  • Engineers and planners searching across systems instead of fixing and planning
  • Programme boards steering from last month's report
  • Hard-won knowledge leaving with experienced people faster than it can be taught

Enterprise · Platform · Part

  • Bring fleets, sites and programmes to life with live maps, 3D twins and motion
  • Apply your design system so every screen is unmistakably yours, for you and for your customer
  • Unify maintenance, supply chain, telemetry, workforce and programme data through a single data layer
  • Engineer it to perform in an operations room, on a laptop, on a handheld or in a headset, in the environment you choose

Our solution

From reports to a living picture of readiness

  • Start with the question, not the report

    Let a leader begin with what they need to know, such as which assets are at risk of missing their next tasking, and see why.
  • Make the enterprise visible

    Live maps and 3D twins show every site, platform and programme in context, so people see the pattern instead of hunting for it.
  • Design for how decisions are made

    Drill from enterprise to platform to system, with shared views for customer, programme and engineering teams looking at the same truth.
  • Rehearse before you commit

    Simulation runs in the background: test a maintenance plan, a manning change or a supply delay in the twin before it happens for real.
  • Build on what already exists

    Integrate with the asset management, ERP, engineering and planning systems you already run, inside your security boundary. No rip and replace.

Case study · Mission and programme intelligence

From the order book to the live air, sea and cyber picture

A five-module command centre for a defence and aerospace enterprise. Leaders move from group performance to the programme portfolio, the national industrial footprint, a live multi-domain picture with 3D air and naval assets, and a cyber and electronic warfare operations room, without leaving the screen.

  • Multi-domain picture: air, surface and unknown tracks over the UK, with radar coverage and replay of the last 24 hours
  • Rehearse the scenario: a quick reaction alert intercept plays out step by step, so teams can brief and debrief on it
  • Programme portfolio: drill from the order book to the health of a single programme
  • Industrial network: every site on the map, with what it builds and what it depends on
  • Cyber and EW room: a live threat feed and spectrum view beside the physical picture
  • Fleet showroom: real 3D models of each platform with specifications, media and documents

Case study · Training and scenario replay

Replay the mission from the data, inside the cockpit

A training twin that rebuilds real flights from recorded flight data on a photoreal earth. Instructors and crews see the same event from outside the aircraft, from the flight deck with live instruments, and on the record, with real traffic and real weather around them.

  • Built from recorded data: flight data recorder and tracking data drive the replay, second by second
  • Inside and outside: a full cockpit with a working primary flight display, plus chase and tower views
  • The real environment: live traffic, live weather reports and volumetric cloud around the aircraft
  • Instructor console: scenarios, checklists and shared training records in one place
  • Any recorded mission: the same engine replays a vessel transit, a vehicle trial or an incident investigation
  • Less live time needed: crews rehearse on the ground what is expensive or unsafe to repeat for real

Case study · Depot, stores and logistics

From the boardroom to the depot floor in three clicks

Stock and supply command for a national network of sites, shown here for a trade supply business. Every site sits on a live map, then the view drops onto one real yard in photoreal 3D with live bin-level inventory over the actual racking, and finally steps inside. The same model fits a dockyard, a vehicle depot or a spares warehouse.

  • Network cockpit: stock value, availability and risk across every site at a glance
  • Estate on the map: each site sized and coloured by what needs attention
  • Photoreal site: live bin-level stock drawn over the real bays and buildings
  • Replenish and watch: raise an order and follow the delivery to the gate
  • Step inside: racking, issue counter and goods-in, all driven by the same stock model
  • One data model: the number on the board and the bay on the ground are the same record, so they always agree

Case study · UK Agri-Tech Centre

A working site as a live twin, from sensors to mixed reality

The South West Dairy Digital Twin, built with the UK Agri-Tech Centre. A real working farm is modelled building by building, fed by live sensors, with a copilot that answers questions about the herd, energy and environment, and a mixed-reality view in a headset. The pattern is the same for a ship compartment, an engine bay or a plant room.

  • The whole site in 3D: buildings, equipment and livestock, to scale and explorable
  • Live sensors: environment, energy and animal data on the asset it belongs to, not in a separate system
  • Status at a glance: every building and system coloured by condition, with the detail one click away
  • Ask the twin: a copilot that answers in plain English from the live data
  • Mixed reality: step into the twin on a headset and see data on the physical object
  • Proven with a real operator: running on a working site, with real data, for the people who manage it

Exact digital twins

The real vessel, vehicle, fleet or site, rebuilt to the millimetre

A twin only earns trust when people recognise what they are looking at. We build exact replicas of real platforms, whole fleets and the places they operate from, inside and out, from a single vehicle or submarine compartment to a dockyard, a depot or an airfield. We start from whatever already exists and we never need a perfect dataset to begin.

What we build from

Plans and engineering data: CAD and BIM models, general arrangements, scanned drawings and legacy paper plans.

Pictures and video: photographs, walk-through footage and photogrammetry, turned into accurate textured geometry.

LiDAR and laser scans: point clouds and Gaussian splats of compartments, workshops and whole sites, captured as built rather than as designed.

Any other source: survey and GIS data, satellite and aerial imagery, manuals, parts catalogues and sensor feeds.

What you get

A faithful replica: true dimensions, layouts, liveries and interiors, so crews and engineers recognise it at once.

Every part addressable: systems, compartments and components linked to their maintenance, stores and condition data.

Step inside: walk a deck, a cockpit or a workshop in the browser, on a headset or on a handheld, with no install.

Controlled by design: sensitive geometry stays in your environment, with detail levels set by role and clearance.

How we work

Any data, from any source, in the format that fits the moment

Defence and critical engineering run on fragmented systems, some of them decades old and many of them restricted: maintenance in one place, stores in another, telemetry and documents somewhere else. We integrate them through a governed data layer and engineer the experience people actually see, so a maintainer acts from one view and the programme board sees the whole picture.

Data we integrate

Assets and maintenance: configuration, work orders, defects and inspections from asset management systems.

Supply chain and stores: spares, orders, lead times and stock across sites and suppliers.

Telemetry and condition: sensors, health and usage monitoring, control systems and tracking feeds.

People, programme and documents: skills and availability, schedules, safety cases and technical publications, unified under one model.

How we deliver it

Live maps and 3D twins: real-time rendering in the browser to see where, how much and why, instantly.

A view for every role: customer, programme board, planner and maintainer on a handheld, all reading the same data.

Simulation and guided modes: test a plan in the background, or let the twin walk a board or a new joiner through the story.

Deployed where your data lives: your cloud, your premises or a sovereign environment, built on open standards with audit built in.

Executive summary

From last month's report to confident decisions at the dockside.

The problem

Teams keep complex assets available with information they cannot see in time.

£16.9bn

Gap between the UK equipment plan and its budget: National Audit Office, 2023

The solution

An engineered visual layer that shows engineers, operators and leaders the right information, in the right format, at the perfect time.

The outcome

Higher availability, engineers who fix instead of search, and results measured against your KPIs.

11%
of revenues
The world's 500 largest companies lose 11% of revenues to unplanned downtime, $1.4 trillion a year. (Siemens, 2024)

Our solution

Three layers of capability: from proof of concept to live

Proof of Concept

Prove the idea with real or representative data in weeks, not months.

Proof of Concept

  • Discovery with engineers, operators and stakeholders
  • Data, systems and security audit
  • UX research and journey mapping
  • Interactive prototype on real or synthetic data
  • Success measured against agreed KPIs

Pilot & Build

Turn the prototype into production-grade software with a live pilot.

Pilot & Build

  • Integration with asset, supply chain and telemetry systems
  • Design system and accessible component library
  • Secure architecture with a path to accreditation
  • Automated testing and CI/CD pipelines
  • Pilot with one platform, site or programme
  • Usage analytics and audit trail

Live & Scale

Deploy into live environments and grow across the enterprise.

Live & Scale

  • Production deployment with monitoring and support
  • Performance, security and resilience hardening
  • Roll-out across sites, programmes and customer channels
  • Continuous optimisation from usage data
  • Integration into your platforms and roadmap
  • Knowledge transfer to your teams

What's next

Initial Proof of Concept

A first step that puts a working twin in front of your teams: your enterprise view and one asset or site, built with your data.

Discovery & PoC

A low-risk engagement to design and prove the experience for your teams, then shape the path to pilot and live deployment from what we learn together.

  • Discovery workshops with engineering, operations and programme teams to understand how decisions are actually made
  • Technical and security audit of the asset, supply chain and telemetry data and interfaces available to power the experience
  • UX and visual design of the enterprise view and one asset or site twin, built for the people who will use it
  • A working proof of concept on real data, or on a safe synthetic sample where data is restricted
  • Testing with planners, maintainers and leaders, capturing feedback and quantifying the impact on your KPIs
  • Recommendations, target architecture and a roadmap for pilot, accreditation, live deployment and scaling