GSE Systems, Inc. (GSE) provides engineering services and technology, expert staffing, and simulation software to clients in the power and process industries.
The company provides customers with simulation, engineering technology, engineering and plant services that help clients reduce risks associated with operating their plants, increase revenue through improved plant and employee performance, and lower costs through improved operational efficiency. In addition, the company provides professio...
GSE Systems, Inc. (GSE) provides engineering services and technology, expert staffing, and simulation software to clients in the power and process industries.
The company provides customers with simulation, engineering technology, engineering and plant services that help clients reduce risks associated with operating their plants, increase revenue through improved plant and employee performance, and lower costs through improved operational efficiency. In addition, the company provides professional services that help clients fill key vacancies in the organization on a short-term basis, including but not limited to, the following: procedure writing, planning and scheduling; engineering; senior reactor operator (‘SRO’) training and certification; technical support and training personnel focused on regulatory compliance and certification in the nuclear power industry.
The company’s services help its customers provide clean energy to all in a reliable and safe manner. There is growing recognition of the importance of low and zero carbon energy as the United States in particular, and the world in general, races to decarbonize power grids. The company is uniquely positioned as one of the largest independent nuclear services companies in the United States to support decarbonization of the power industry. In fact, the more wind and solar that comes onto the grid, the greater zero carbon base-load becomes to ensure grid stability, reliability and safety. Decarbonization is a leading means of delivering environmental equity – ensuring that anyone regardless of background and economic status can benefit from a safe and healthy environment, free of pollution related to carbon intensive power generation. The company’s operations also include interactive software for tutorials and simulation for the refining, chemical, and petrochemical industries.
While most of the company’s revenue comes from support provided to the nuclear power industry, the company also serves agencies in the United States Department of Energy (‘DOE’), the United States Navy and adjacent defense opportunities, and the oil and gas, refining, chemical, and petrochemical markets.
Segments
The company operates through two reportable business segments: Engineering and Workforce Solutions. Each segment focuses on delivering solutions to customers within the company’s target markets. Marketing and communications, accounting, finance, legal, human resources, corporate development, information systems and other administrative services are organized at the corporate or parent level. Business development and sales resources are generally aligned with each segment to support existing customer accounts and new customer development. The business units collaborate to facilitate cross-selling and the development of new solutions. The following is a description of the company’s business segments:
Engineering
The company’s Engineering segment primarily encompasses the company’s power plant high-fidelity simulation solutions, technical engineering services for ASME programs, power plant thermal performance optimization, and interactive computer-based tutorials/simulation focused on the process industry. The Engineering segment includes various simulation products, engineering consulting services, and operation training systems delivered across the industries the company serves: primarily in the nuclear, fossil fuel power generation and the process industries. The company’s simulation solutions include the following: (1) simulation software and services, including operator training systems, for the nuclear power industry, (2) simulation software and services, including operator training systems, for the fossil power industry, and (3) simulation software and services for the process industries used to teach fundamental industry processes and control systems to newly hired employees and for ongoing workforce development and training. The company and its predecessors have been providing these services since 1976.
The company’s Engineering segment also provides the following: (1) in-service testing for engineering programs focused on ASME OM code including Appendix J, balance of plant programs, and thermal performance; (2) in-service inspection for specialty engineering including ASME Section XI; (3) software solutions; and (4) mechanical design, civil/structural design, electrical, instrumentation and controls design, digital controls/cyber security, and fire protection for nuclear power plant design modifications. The company’s subsidiaries, Programs & Performance and Design & Analysis, typically work as either the EOC or specialty EOC for the company’s clients under master services agreements and are included in the company’s Engineering segment due to their service offerings.
Workforce Solutions
The Workforce Solutions segment, formerly known as Hyperspring and Absolute Consulting, supports entire project lifecycles by providing highly specialized, technical talent and specialty services throughout the energy, engineering, and adjacent industries, including construction, government, infrastructure, environmental, and manufacturing. This includes a wide range of solutions, including training services, professional services, procedure writing services, and flexible staffing and talent acquisition services through the company’s Training Services and Technical Staffing businesses.
Working together, Workforce Solutions gives the company’s customers increased agility by providing the ability to identify the right talent, hire quickly for short or long-term needs, and/or even take on entire project scopes with fixed price or hourly billing options. The company also partners with and supports its Engineering Services division, offering the company’s customers yet another option for outsourcing managed tasks. Additionally, by utilizing the company’s services, its customers gain additional benefits, such as reductions in response time, overhead costs, overtime pay, risk, training, time to fill, onboarding, and more. The company does these things, all while providing timely, flexible, and effective solutions.
Examples of some of the highly skilled positions the company fulfills are senior reactor operations instructors, procedure writers, project managers, engineers, work management specialists, planners and training material developers.
Business Strategy
The company’s business strategies are to serve existing customers and adjacencies with compelling solutions, focused on decarbonization and supporting the investment required to extend the operating lifetime and produce more power from the fleet overtime; cross-sell and upsell into existing markets; organic growth through new and compelling technology; and focus on compelling adjacencies in clean energy, defense, and national labs.
Products and Services
Engineering
The company’s engineering team, consisted of design, simulation, regulatory compliance, and performance optimization capabilities are unique to the industry and capable of addressing the entire power generation life cycle. As the company moves forward in alignment with client and industry goals targeting clean energy production and overall decarbonization the company is positioned to be at the forefront in three critical areas: maintain regulatory compliance; extend the operating lifetime of the existing fleet; and support capital investment to produce more power from the fleet over time.
Engineering Solutions for Decarbonization, Plant Lifetime Extension and More Power Production Over Time
With overall decarbonization as a key focus, the company will blend its efforts in those areas described above to best support that goal. This will position the company’s engineering team as recognized leaders in the pursuit of low carbon energy as the world progresses on the current energy transition efforts. An overview highlighting many areas of the company’s current and planned involvement, as well as associated benefits, is summarized below:
With nuclear power being such a high percentage of carbon free power generation, the continued safe and efficient operation of these plants is critical to meeting decarbonization goals and providing for national security. The company helps the industry achieve these goals by providing better training and engineering services to optimize performance while maintaining regulatory compliance. The company’s focus is on products and services that improve efficiency and lower operating costs for existing power generation assets, as well as helping the next generation of carbon free power plants achieve design approval and plant startup as quickly as possible.
Training plant operators and engineers is critical to safe operations and continued viability of the industry. Using state-of-the-art modeling tools combined with the company’s leading nuclear power modeling expertise, the company provides simulation solutions that achieve unparalleled fidelity and accuracy. The company has also adapted these solutions to provide highly accurate training across a variety of delivery platforms. These include universal or generic simulators which are excellent in teaching fundamental concepts, systems, and plant behaviors. They are also used by academia for research on improved plant operations, human factors design and the development of automated procedures and decision support systems for the next generation of reactors. The company’s part task simulators and virtual control panels are cost effective solutions enabling customers broader freedom in where they deliver simulation training and opening the door for plant engineers and maintenance staff to access high fidelity training without interrupting the operator training program. The company’s full-scope simulators use the most sophisticated modeling technology. For these reasons, the company has delivered more nuclear power plant simulators than any other company in the world.
The company delivers training products through cloud-based platforms. This delivery method reduces the company’s customers’ infrastructure and ownership costs and provides anytime, anywhere access to rich learning content. Innovative critical thinking exercises enable autonomous simulation training to take place, reducing the burden on instructors and increasing training touch time for students and employees. All of which enable the training organization to be more flexible and efficient.
The company’s simulation solutions not only address industry training needs, but are used for simulation-assisted engineering, that is, the process of using simulation to virtually test and commission plant designs prior to construction. Because new builds and upgrades to existing plants result in deployment of new technology, the company’s high-fidelity simulator enables designers to model the interaction between systems in advance of construction. With the company’s combination of simulation technology and expert engineering, the company was chosen to build first-of-a-kind simulators for the AP1000, PBMR, and small modular reactors such as those being built by NuScale Power Corporation. This technique reduces design costs, accelerates design approvals, de-risks projects, and provides clients with a tool to sell their new plant designs to both customers and regulators. In essence, enabling the company’s customers to get to market faster.
Beyond training, the company’s technology is used to improve the efficiency of existing power generation assets. The company’s TSM System provides live insights into plant operations, by monitoring performance of key plant equipment, analyzing degradation and recommending actions. When combined with DVR techniques, the company can help reduce operating and maintenance cost. DVR enhances the quality of data for analysis and decision making, providing a solution to better detect and identify faulty measurements/sensors and thus reduce maintenance costs by focusing on critical components.
The company’s EP-Plus software suite provides one common platform for all engineering programs, helping client engineers keep track of engineering program inspection and monitoring requirements aimed at safe plant operations. This reduces the engineering workload of the company’s customers, saving costs and enabling staff to focus on the most critical activities.
All of these technologies leverage the vast experience and industry expertise of the company’s engineering team. The company’s engineering team helps the company’s clients throughout the entire plant lifecycle. The company is the Engineer of Choice (‘EOC’) in areas, such as:
Design engineering for plant mechanical, electrical, I&C, civil and structural, fire protection and cyber systems;
Engineering programs addressing ASME codes, balance of plant programs other regulatory programs and economic driven programs such as plant thermal performance;
Simulation engineering for nuclear, thermal and process plant training and virtual commissioning;
The company sees organic growth through closer integration of these engineering activities and technologies to provide solutions to improve the performance of the company’s customers’ people and plants.
Workforce Solutions
As the company’s customers’ experienced employees retire or pursue other opportunities, access to industry experts is essential to ensure ongoing operations and advancements. The company’s Workforce Solutions segment provides flexible staffing services, knowledge transfer support, end to end workforce management programs, procedures services, and specialized training programs and services. Staffing and training needs change over time, and in turn, the company’s clients need options. In order to find the best solutions for the company’s customers, the company emphasizes fully understanding the unique needs of each customer.
The industries the company serves need talent, including but not limited to operating personnel, procedure writers, engineers, operators, technical professionals, and instructors. The company’s customers need talent who can step in quickly and make an impact. Identifying technical professionals with the right knowledge and experience, who can perform the work and/or share their knowledge with others is critical, and the company specializes in this area of need. The company provides qualified professionals, instructors and turnkey projects/courses that work within the client’s system and complement the methods already in place.
Example staffing services include Temporary, Temp-to-Hire, Direct Hire, Staff Development, Managed Staffing Programs, Payroll Services, and Vets On Call.
Example training services include Turn-key Training, On-demand Training, Certification Courses, Continuing Education Courses, and Custom Training.
In addition to the company’s core training and staffing business lines in the nuclear sector, there may be organic growth opportunity with the company’s Workforce Solutions segment by expanding its service offerings to meet the evolving needs of the energy and engineering industries. Due to the company’s team’s composition and direct industry experience, the company is positioned to attempt to expand the company’s Workforce Solutions segment offerings through the company’s existing relationships and industry knowledge. Historically, the company has placed emphasis on cross-selling and combining the services offered by the company’s Workforce Solutions segment with the company’s Engineering segment.
Workforce solutions is not only a complement to the company’s other service offerings; have looked for opportunities to lead the way as the preferred method for many of the company’s clients to execute entire projects and/or supplement their own staff during project peak periods or with specialized skill sets that are often hard to find. The company’s industry experts give its customers the ability to ramp up quickly, eliminate risks, and provide more flexible options as situations often demand.
The Workforce Solutions segment has historically allowed the company to expand its footprint, adding new customers in the company’s primary and adjacent industries. While continuing to diversify the company’s customer base and add new business, it’s important to remain focused in the company’s areas of expertise. In spite of challenging economic conditions, Workforce Solutions is uniquely positioned for success. The company’s flexible solutions, and specialized industry experience, allow the company to more easily adapt to customer needs and position the company to serve both current and future needs. One recent example is the company’s demonstrated ability to adapt to increased customer needs for direct hire services, but as the economic conditions shift, the company is seeing a shift to more field professional hiring and anticipate customers to continue with this trend.
The company has endeavored to better position itself to support these opportunities with strategic hires, staff alignment, and a unified approach. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, employees are making changes in their professional lives for many reasons, and the company’s Workforce Solutions team provides the company’s customers with results and flexibility to support ever-changing needs.
The company recognizes the necessity to listen to the needs of the company’s customers and provide the right solution. Whether the answer is one of the company’s traditional service offerings, involving or referring the company’s engineering services team, or putting together a customized approach, the company has the capabilities to help the company’s customers get the job done. The company brings together the collection of skills the company has amassed over more than 40 years beginning with the company’s traditional roots in custom high-fidelity simulation and training solutions for the power industries, extended through the acquisition of specialized engineering capabilities, enhanced by the entry and intermediate level training solutions of EnVision, backed by the extensive Workforce Solutions services of Technical Staffing and Training Services, and now strengthened by the company’s ability to successfully adapt, diversify, combine, and offer a solutions based approach with the company’s Workforce Solutions team.
Customer and Locations
The company has completed more than 1,100 installations across the power and process industries in 50 countries.
In 2023, approximately 12.1% of the company’s revenue was generated from end-users outside the United States and the company has a concentration of revenue from one individual customer, which accounted for 22.7% of the company’s consolidated revenue, respectively. A small representative list of the company’s customer base includes: ABB Inc., American Electric Power, Bechtel Hanford National Laboratory, Duke Energy, EDF Energy (United Kingdom), Emerson Process Management, Entergy Nuclear Operations Inc, Exelon, Constellation, PSEG Nuclear, Inc., Siemens AG (Germany), Southern Nuclear Operating Company, Inc., Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, LLC, Slovenkse Elektrarne, A.S. (Slovakia), Tennessee Valley Authority, and Westinghouse Electric Co. Hydrocarbon and chemical process customers include numerous large oil refineries and chemical plants such as BP (worldwide), Statoil ASA (Norway), Chevron, Shell Oil Company (worldwide), Total (Belgium), Vistra (USA), Urenco (USA), and Valero (USA).
Marketing and Sales
The company markets its products and services through a network of direct sales staff, agents and representatives, and strategic alliance partners. Market-oriented business and customer account teams define and implement specific campaigns to pursue opportunities.
The company continues to have a proactive public relations program, issuing non-financial press releases to announce product development and significant deliveries, as well as the company’s presence at numerous industry trade shows and technical conferences. The company is active on numerous social media platforms and strive to build a strong presence across all media that the company’s clients use to find information about the company’s comprehensive capabilities.
The company’s ability to support its multi-facility, international, and multinational clients is facilitated by the company’s network of offices and strategic partners in the U.S. and overseas. In addition to the company’s office located in China, its ability to conduct international business is enhanced by the company’s multilingual and multicultural workforce. The company has strategic relationships with system integrators and agents representing its interests in the U.S., Bulgaria, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Ukraine and various locations in the Gulf Coast Countries of the Middle East.
Competition
In the nuclear simulation market, the company competes directly with firms primarily from Canada, France and the U.S., such as L-3 MAPPS Inc., CORYS T.E.S.S (France) and Western Services Corporation. In the process industry, the company’s main competition comes from large digital control system/automation companies such as Honeywell and Schneider. In the company’s engineering market, the company competes with firms primarily from North America such as Enercon Services, Kinectrics, Sargent & Lundy LLC, and AECOM.
The Workforce Solutions business services include technical professional and training-related and services as well as staff augmentation solutions. Competitors of the company for these services include but is not limited to the following: GP Strategies (acquired by Learning Technologies Group plc in 2021), The Westwind Group, Professional Training Technologies, and Western Technical Services. The competition for staff augmentation includes: System One, Aerotek, and Peak Technical.
Intellectual Property
The company has numerous registered U.S. trademarks, including word and design trademarks on: GSE Systems, GSE Solutions, JTOPMERET, RELAP5-HD, VPanel, and SimExec, among others, as well as a design trademark on the ‘GSE’ logo. The company also claims trademark rights to various other product and service offerings, including DesignEP, Java Application and Development Environment (JADE), OpenSim, PSA-HD, SimSuite Pro, SmartTutor, THOR, and Xtreme I/S, among others.
Research and Development
For the year ended December 31, 2023, the company's research and development expenses were $0.6 million.
History
GSE Systems, Inc. was founded in 1971. The company was incorporated in 1994.
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