Profound began in the 1960’s as a group of the Building and Construction Research Department within the Dutch organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), the second largest R&D organization in Europe.  The Foundation Pile Diagnostic Systems (FPDS) Group, as it was called, took on a broad range of activities for its clients in foundation pile testing with state-of-the-art technology that was developed in research and development projects.  Their equipment and software also enabled clients to perform or monitor foundation pile testing themselves.

During the 1980’s the market, and especially the international market, expanded substantially for these activities.  To ensure continued optimal services to all clients (incl. the international clients) while maintaining the high technology standards of the products, the decision was made in 1999 to change the department to a fully owned subsidiary of TNO.  This subsidiary was called Profound (PROfessional FOUNdation Diagnostics), which was split off from the TNO organization some four years later, when it became a privately held company in 2002. 

Profound develops and markets Professional Pile Testing Equipment and Geotechnical Monitoring systems, incl.:

• Sonic Integrity Testing (SIT)
• Vibration monitoring (Vibra & VM)
• Pile Driving Analysis (PDA)
• Dynamic Load Testing (DLT)
• Statnamic Testing (STN)
• Wave Equation Programs (TNOWAVE), incl. signal matching for SIT and DLT (SITWAVE and DLTWAVE) and pile driving prediction (PDPWAVE)
• Geotechnical Monitoring and Instrumentation (IS)

In September 2004 Profound signed an agreement with VMS to establish a North American base in order to better serve their North-American clients (see the press release).  For this purpose VMS-Profound was established, another step in Profound's ongoing effort to improve their service to all their customers, who are located in more than 40 countries around the world.    

In January 2005 VMS-Profound started to offer training courses in the use of some of Profound equipment (see the press release).  Until then all training was provided by staff based at the Profound's head office in The Netherlands.  The plan is that during 2005 VMS-Profound will start to provide training in the use of all our equipment, and the training program covering our Vibration Monitoring Equipment is the first step in this effort. 

For more information please check out Profound’s website (www.profound-usa.com), or contact the VMS-Profound office in Tyler, TX (ph: (903) 216 0038 or e-mail: vms-profound@verbeekservices.com).