Cybrscape / The works
Eighteen years, two buildings, and a rule about fasteners
Cybrscape Instrument & Deck Works was registered in 2011 to repair other people’s decks. The manufacturing side exists because we ran out of parts, and it has never stopped behaving like a repair shop that happens to make things.
Section 1 · How this started
We started making parts because nobody would sell us any
In 2015 four of the decks on the bench were from makers who had folded, and the jack assemblies for all four were the same shape and unobtainable. Ines machined twelve of them on a manual mill over a fortnight. Eleven worked. That is the entire origin of Cybrscape as a manufacturer — not a vision, a stock problem.
Three years later we built a whole deck, and we built it the way the bench had taught us: heavy, obvious, and openable with one driver. The Mk I is slow and four megabytes will not run anything modern, and there are still a few hundred in service, because nothing on one is glued to anything else.
Everything that has made this company money since has come out of that same loop. We sell a deck, it comes back, we find out what fails, and the next revision does not do that any more. It is not a strategy anyone would present to an investor. It is just what owning your own service department does to you if you let it.
The one-driver rule
No serviceable part may require the removal of another serviceable part, and the whole deck must open with one size of driver. Devan Strick wrote that down in 2019 after an afternoon with a competitor’s chassis and a heat gun, and it has cost us a millimetre here and forty grams there on every deck since.
It is also the single reason our bench turnaround is 6.2 days against a ten-day SLA. You cannot buy that number with more technicians. You buy it four years earlier, in the chassis drawing.
Section 2 · Record
What happened, and when
- 2011
Two benches on Fenn Street
Ines Marek and Osman Farrow registered Cybrscape Instrument Repair to fix other people’s decks. First year: 214 dockets, no products, no debt.
- 2013
A service department, on purpose
Junia Pell joined and wrote the docket system that still runs. Turnaround went from “when it is done” to a number we publish.
- 2015
We start making parts
Nobody would sell us jack assemblies for decks whose makers had folded, so we machined our own. That is the whole origin of the manufacturing side.
- 2018
Mk I
Eight hundred and forty decks, assembled on the repair bench. Heavy, slow, and repairable with hand tools.
- 2020
Mk II
First chassis designed by people who take decks apart for a living. Twelve fasteners and one driver.
- 2021
Bay 4
Manufacturing moved to the Kellerman Reach estate. Service stayed on Fenn Street, deliberately, because it is a different job.
- 2022
Mk III
Sealed properly, at the insistence of survey crews who had opinions about the Mk II in rain. Still in the catalogue.
- 2025
Mk IV
Two jacks, six slots, four chassis revisions since. The deck we know best.
- 2028
Mk V
Ninety-six megabytes in a deck this size. Built forty at a time because that is how many memory stacks we can grade in a month.
Section 3 · The two sites
Manufacturing and service are in different buildings on purpose
When we moved production out to Kellerman Reach in 2021 the obvious thing would have been to take service with it. We did not, and we would make the same call again. Building decks and repairing them are different jobs with different rhythms, and a bench that shares a roof with a production line ends up serving the line.
Manufacturing
Bay 4, Kellerman Reach Industrial Estate, Lowside
Chassis machining, assembly, memory grading and final test. The Mk V memory stacks are graded here and the batch size of forty is set by how many we can match in a month, not by how many we could sell.
Service
Service Annexe, Unit 11, Fenn Street
The original two benches, now eleven. Takes in every mark we have ever made and a good deal that we have not. Junia Pell has run it since 2013 and publishes its figures monthly whether they are good or not.
Section 4 · People
Who decides things
Four names, because four people can be held to something. Two of them founded the company and both still work on product rather than above it, which slows some decisions down and improves most of them.
- Ines MarekFounder · Engineering
Started on the bench in 2004, working for somebody else. Still signs the calibration card on every Mk V that leaves the works, which slows us down and is not up for discussion.
- Osman FarrowFounder · Operations
Did the books for the first four years, then the supply chain, which turned out to be the same job with more travel. Owns the decision to build in batches of forty rather than promise what we cannot grade.
- Junia PellDirector, Service
Joined 2013. Wrote the docket system. Publishes the turnaround figures monthly including the months we miss, on the grounds that a number you only publish when it is good is not a number.
- Devan StrickChief Engineer, Chassis
Joined 2019 from the survey side, as a customer with a list of complaints. The Mk III seal, the replaceable corner blocks and the one-driver rule are all his.
Section 5 · The competition
On Nitrosoft
People ask, so here it is plainly. Nitrosoft build quick decks and they ship them faster than we do. Their benchmark figures are real; we have measured several of them ourselves and they hold up. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something.
Where we differ is what happens in year four. Their chassis are not built to be opened twice, their parts availability after a model is retired is short, and the second time one comes across our bench it takes twice as long — which is why we charge for the second hour. That is an engineering choice on their part, not a failing: it is how you get a deck that light and that fast to market that quickly.
If your decks are replaced every two years and speed is the whole job, buy theirs. If you expect to still be using this deck in 2039 and to be able to get a jack assembly for it, buy ours. We are perfectly comfortable with that division, and we will still service theirs.
We do not publish comparative benchmarks against another manufacturer’s hardware. Every figure on this site was measured on our own decks, and a number measured by the party who benefits from it is worth what you would expect.
Cybrscape Instrument & Deck Works · Trade registration LS-114-882 · Registered office Bay 4, Kellerman Reach Industrial Estate, Lowside