At the time the company was formed, ship- yards were reducing staff and were being forced to return to their core business. The costs of retaining specialised electrical workshops and installation personnel were a huge burden that was previously accepted as an essential part of the total shipbuilding process. In many cases shipyards closed and traditional skills were lost in communities where once mighty and historic ships had been built. Generations had toiled there with great pride, under arduous conditions. This left the field of electrical engineering and project management open to new parties and, indeed, to a complete rethink. EMC’s founders recognised this and set about providing specialist services of this nature to ship owners and shipyards. Under EMC supervision some complex and state-of-the-art ships were successfully completed and a new company was born.