SOFTWARE company Gael is planning to hire more than 20 staff as it scales up for the global roll-out of a new multi-lingual safety management and monitoring product.

The cloud-based Enlighten system has already been used successfully in a pilot project for a large UK-based rail operator.

Gael is now planning to market the system to existing and new customers in sectors including aviation, healthcare, oil and gas, manufacturing and life sciences.

Among the posts Gael wants to fill are software developers, testing engineers and commercial staff, while Scottish IT recruitment specialist 9-20 has been hired by Gael to help in the hunt for new people.

Gael expects its employee numbers to be close to 130 by the end of this year.

Chief executive Ashley Marron said the new jobs will all be based in Scotland.

He said: "The success [Enlighten] is having in the marketplace means we need to ramp up our capability and add more functionality to it.

"We have the core product there and it is just about adding more to it.

"The pilot project has gone really well so we are just looking to commercialise and take advantage now."

That success comes on the back of the East Kilbride business reporting a 20% hike in annual revenue to £10 million in 2013.

Chief executive Ashley Marron expects the business to grow that turnover figure this year by at least a further 25%. Mr Marron said: "Enlighten will get taken to the customers, particularly those with global plants, as it is able to cope with multi-lingual.

"The new offering offers better ability to share information across countries and continents so we will be trying to up-sell it to our current customer base.

"Equally, it takes us into a space we have never been in and we will be trying to tackle some of the larger organisations."

Mr Marron said Gael is seeing continued good growth prospects out of the Middle East, where it employs six staff, after breaking into the healthcare market there in 2013 with hospital contracts to add to customers in aviation and energy.

The company is also hopeful of a greater return from Asia after recently winning contracts in Indonesia and Vietnam.

The company's base in Shanghai is also seeing a growing level of interest, particularly in the aviation sector, while its US base in Boston has secured Boeing as a customer.

Mr Marron said: "Each year we continue to re-invest in the business and particularly heavily in our products.

"We are not seeing any slowdown across any of our markets.

"The compliance space is one that just gets more and more regulation thrown at it so we are in a right good marketplace."

Gael has more than 2500 customers, including helicopter firm Avincis, the General Civil Aviation Authority in the United Arab Emirates, airline Etihad and oil and gas firm Sabic.

Mr Marron added: "Our business is growing, our products and their capabilities are increasing, and our mobile applications are improving.

"With a growing product suite and increased staff quota, we look forward to 2014 and will be well equipped for the challenges it will bring."

Gael was founded by Donald Maciver and Derek Jack in the wake of the 1991 closure of the Unisys electronics plant in Livingston, West Lothian, where they both worked.