Squash Lessons for Engineering

The picture in today’s post comes courtesy of Dr Marc Dussault, The Exponential Growth Strategist. At his recent Exponential Business Building Bootcamp, he demonstrated how a Squash Racquet gets broken from repeated use.

Broken Squash Racquet

So what does this have to do with Engineering? Glad you asked.

First, I have to explain the demonstration. Marc showed that it takes a very large amount of force to break the Squash Racquet.  He really applied himself to the destructive task and it took a few minutes of escalating Squash Racquet abuse before it finally succumbed and broke.  Some of us in the front of the room could tell just how much it required to break the Squash Racquet. However the Squash Racket already had a crack, so Marc knew where to apply the force in order to break it.  The picture above is the final outcome.  Without the crack being obvious, it would have been almost impossible to have broken the Squash Racquet using just randomly applied force.

Marc then explained that way the Squash Racquet became cracked in the first place, was by it being consistently scraped along the wall as he retrieved the ball from shots along the wall.  Marc is an outstanding competitive squash player and currently ranks  as World # 18! So he knows his stuff when it comes to squash.  You can read more about this at his Mindset Of A Champion blog.

So if you know what to look for, you can monitor the thinning of the racquet and get an idea of when and where it might fail.  If you don’t know what to look for, then the failure will be unexpected.

Software Testing and Software Engineering

A lot of Software Testing can suffer from the same problem.  If you already know where the weakness will be and how to spot it, then finding a bug is easy.  You can set up the scenario, monitor for the symptom and confirm the failure.  Or, if you have enough resources you can go the brute force approach and just break it through the persistent use of randomly directed and escalated force of testing.  However very products are simple enough and very few companies are large enough to have that level of resource and to solve the problem this way.  So for the rest of us, the other 99.995%, a more intelligent approach is needed.

Since you don’t know where and when it will fail, it is best to remove failure causes from the beginning. This is where Software Engineering come is. Software Engineering is not just coding.  Coding is the production end of the Software Engineering process.  Software Engineering is about designing the system so you have defined the components so they are each fully testable in their own right. Then you can apply processes like Unit Testing to ensure they are fully functional as stand alone pieces of software. You can then perform Integration Testing to ensure that software added to the system correctly handles both the Execution Flow, also known as Control Flow, and Data Flow required including error and Exception Handling. The result is that you build up a fully working and correctly executing system quickly and with great confidence. It isn’t a magic bullet but it is close to it.

As was famously quipped by Edsger Dijkstra, “If Debugging is the process of removing bugs, then programming must be the process of putting them in”.

So if you put less bugs in, you have less debugging to do. And that saves time and removes future time bombs.  Because the chance that you find them all is zero percent. And you can’t create a system that is 100% testable by brute force means. So you have to go about it smarter.  It will save time, money and improve the business outcome now and into the future.

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © 2010  Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

Software Testing

I recently met with an Australian Software Development company, PepperStack, and we got onto the subject of Software Testing. As someone who began their career as an Electronics Hardware Engineer, one of the things I learnt was that you have to test thoroughly to be sure everything is working as it should be. With Electronics, if you make a mistake with an Engineering Calculation you can easily destroy things. This is sometimes referred to as “letting the smoke out”. So it was good to meet with others who believe in the same level of rigorous software unit, module and system testing that we do.

Some Engineering Humour

Which reminds me of a joke I once heard:

There are 3 Engineers in a car going for a drive. The first is a Mechanical Engineer, the second an Electronics Engineer and the third is a Software Engineer. Fortunately the Mechanical Engineer is driving because the brakes fail and they are going downhill.  The Mechanical Engineer eventually brings the car safely to a halt and gets out to examine the hydraulic systems.  The Electronics Engineer gets out and checks and body computer, ABS system and the power train CAN bus.  The Software Engineer stays in the car and when queried about it says that they should all just get back in the car and see if it happens again!

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not having a go at Software Engineers. The process of finding and eliminating faults is a very important part of the development cycle and is something that needs up front thinking and not just responding to symptoms.  And the more complex or sophisticated a system is, that harder it is to fully test every possible response to every possible stimuli and after a certain point it becomes impractical to have 100% Test Coverage (every line of code has been executed through all of the possible states).  The reason this is a bigger problem with Software Development is that the flexibility of software means that it is inherently complex and it takes skill and planning to manage that complexity so it is testable.

So here is the issue. More than any other discipline, faults can be experienced by an end user of a product under a situation or scenario you could not have proactively tested against before release.  There are many potential reasons for this including:

• change of hardware or operating system environment
• new standards or protocols
• the sheer number of potential combinations of drivers, peripherals, software and users
• the product being used for a purpose it wasn’t originally designed for
• gamma ray corruption of a memory location – I am getting esoteric now but in some areas like avionics and space this is a big threat

So how do you reduce the likelihood of these problems occurring?

Improving Software Quality

With many new products having Electronics and Embedded Software and the Software Development requiring 80% of the effort, it is important to delivery it as quickly and fault free as you can. The main weapons in your Software Quality arsenal have been known about for a long time but are, in our experience, just not used.  These are:

• Architectural Design – work out how the data and execution flow will happen and how you will manage the constraints
• Functional Decomposition – divide and conquer but with an emphasis on how each module fits into the system and how the interfaces work in detail
• Error handling - who will decide what to do with response codes – again this is data and execution flow and part of the architecture. In many cases exception management is at least 50% of the project.
• Have an Integration Test Plan – some thing that proves the data and execution flow matches the architectural design.  Too often “it builds” seems to be good enough here.
• Unit Test modules – so you remove all the issues before adding them to the integration
• Do the Integration Tests before you try system testing
• Design modules so you can integrate them as shells then add functionality down the track
• Have NVM and configuration data available at the beginning of the project and not as an after thought at the end
• Have a System Test Plan and use it
• Use some of the good practices of Test Driven Development – run the tests every time you change the code
• Have a rationale for what level of Code Coverage you can accept
• Have a rationale for what level of Churn you can accept – Churn is the percentage of the lines of code that have changed in the past time period.  Usually either a week or month depending on the size of the project.
• Use automated software quality tools. For instance we use both PC-Lint and RSM to automated many software quality metrics which saves a lot of time in Code Reviews
• Use Code Reviews, also known as Software Peer Review.  It really does save time.

Next I plan to look at what you can learn about software testing from a Squash Racquet.

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © 2010  Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

This week I was the recipient of an Exponential Entrepreneur of the Year award.  Last year we were received 2 awards for technical excellence when we won 2 of the 15 EDN Innovation awards handed out in Australia in 2009. 

So I was very pleased to be receiving an award recognising the business side of Successful Endeavours.  The award was presented by Dr Marc Dussault of Exponential Programs and recognises entrepreneurs and business people who have demonstrated excellence deploying exponential strategies in their business by profitably creating exceptional value for their clients in a manner that is both measurable and sustainable. The award received was in the category of Engineering Consultant and was one of only 6 handed out in 2010 and the only one in that category. 

Exponential Entrepreneur of the Year 2010 Ray Keefe receives his award from Dr Marc Dussault.

You can read more about the awards at Exponential Programs Entrepreneur of the Year Awards page. 

The main reason for this post is to touch on the most significant aspect of this award for me. I once said that as a Business Owner I made a pretty good Engineer.  The past 18 months has a seen a transition away from that to the point now where I can say that I am an Entrepreneur who is also an Engineer.  Engineering is a Profession and so it isn’t something that suddenly stops being relevant.  Our education and mindset is all based on practical problem solving through the use of technology while balancing performance, risk and cost.  And we apply this skillset and mindset to most aspects of our lives, even when it isn’t the only way to go about it.  So I am very pleased to be making this transition.  Not only is our business better for it but our clients are as well. 

And I also thank our clients for the trust they have placed in us to deliver Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development for their next generation of market leading products, the vast majority of which are still made in Australia at a profit. 

Here is a picture of the Exponential Entrepreneur of the Year award certificate. 

Exponential Entrepreneur of the Year Certificate

 The initial nomination was published on PRWeb at 2010 Exponential Entrepreneur Award Winners Announced. 

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © 2010  Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

An Engineering Problem in Disguise

A funny thing happened to me the other day during the Christmas shopping rush at our local shopping centre in Endeavour Hills.  Our daughter had purchased some clothes for her nieces for Christmas and used the self serve checkout. When she got home she discovered she had not had one of the security tags removed so she asked for my help.

OK, I might be an Electronics Hardware and Embedded Software Engineer but I did do a year of Physics and Chemistry at Deakin University before switching to Engineering and I have had a role in the design of Multidisciplinary Systems with Electromechanical Actuators and Variable Frequency Motor Drives including Multi-Axis Robotic Handlers.  So I thought, “How hard can this be?”

The first step was to review the problem and identify the information.  Those familiar with Edward De Bono‘s Six Thinking Hats will recognise this as the White Hat stage.

I had:

• circular plastic sealed tag with an alignment  feature – a hole through it to accept a tapered pin
• a metal pin with a large head inserted into the centre of the plastic disk
• no other visible connection points

So assuming the tag was made at a minimum price, needed to be aligned correctly to be released and could be disconnected without an external power source; I concluded that the release mechanism was probably magnetic.  So I got a magnet and did some experiments and I could hear something click inside the security tag as I moved the external magnet around.  Now I am very confident that it is a Magnetic Latching Mechanism.  But no orientation of a single magnet released the pin.

I got 2 magnets and worked around the unit until the pin released and the problem was solved.

Having released the tag I gave the garment to my daughter to wrap in Christmas paper and put the tag with pin inserted back into it by the front door.  Since we were shopping the next day I thought I would return the tag.  At the very least it would get recycled.

What’s so good about being an Engineer?

At the shops, I went to the help desk and offered them the tag.  They were very confused.  I explained that it had been accidentally left on one of the items we purchased so I took it off and was returning it to them.  The stunned reply was, “You took it off yourself”?  “Yes” I said.  “I’ll have to call security” was the next reply.  So I said, “It’s all right, I’m an Engineer“.  “Oh, that’s fine then” was the reply and I wandered off to collect some final groceries for Christmas dinner.

So apparently there was a connection in the shop assistants mind that made being an Engineer something special.  They may not have know what that connection was.  And that got me wondering about Engineers and what is so special about us.  Here is a bit of a list of my initial thoughts if I ignore specific Engineering Disciplines:

• we create the future by designing and constructing the machines and systems that it requires
• we routinely solve complex problems that others do not know even exist
• we do all of this because we want a better world and are prepared to do our part to achieve it
• we have learned that covering up a symptom is not the same as solving the underlying problem

You might have some thoughts of your own so please leave a comment.

And of course, I hope you had a Merry Christmas in 2009 and that 2010 is a very good year for you all.  Happy New Year!

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright  Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

Electronics Design To Save Energy

We have looked at how Low Power Electronics is a green strategy because it reduces the amount of power that has to be generated.  And then we looked at a range of options for Reducing Electronics Power Consumption.

Now we are into specifics.  The last post looked at Sleep Modes For Microcontrollers and how extending the Sleep Period and reducing the Sleep Current could dramatically Reduce Electronics Power Consumption.

Saving Electronics Power When Awake

The next logical step is to ensure that Power Consumption when awake is also reduced as much as possible.  This can be a little tricky to get right as it can sometimes eliminate all the benefits you built up with you sleep strategy.  The reasons for this are:

• you can use Analogue Electronics to reduce software power requirements but it has to be turned off during Sleep Mode
• if you do turn the power off to Analogue Electronics then there is a Settling Time after it is powered up
• using Smart Electronics Chips can increase overall Quiescent Current
• unless the Startup Time and Shutdown Time are quick, these can dominate the Power Consumption

Now there are some Software Architecture issues that affect these, especially the last one, but we will look at that in another post.  For the last part of this post we will address the Electronics Design issues that have been raised here.

Electronics Design – To Save Power

Electronics Design can address these Power Consumption issues.  Here is an example of a Power Consumption curve where an RC Time Constant must be taken into account to minimise average Power Consumption.

RC Time Constant affect Power Consumption

Here is a list of general strategies to select from to reduce Power Consumption:

• using the lowest feasible Clock Rate so Clocked Devices use less power
• using shorter Settling Times particularly by controlling RC Time Constants
• select semiconductors for lowest overall Quiescent Current taking awake and sleep operation into account
• ensure streamlined Startup and Shutdown operation

The overall Quiescent Current issues often gives the most difficulty.  This can be addressed through Design Simulation either by SPICE, Software Modelling or a spreadsheet.  For simpler systems the spreadsheet is often the easiest solution to implement.  For very Software Intensive Systems the Software Modelling approach is the most reliable method.  This will allow you to construct scenarios and be able to predict the Power Consumption implications for each of them.

For our Electronics Design and System Test methodology we often create a full system Software Model and so it is easy to use this same Software Model to accumulate the power consumption as it runs.  This can also be automated and so simulate months of operation very quickly.

Next we will look at the role of Embedded Software in ensuring Power Consumption remains as low as possible.

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

How Does Sleep Save Energy?

For this post, we will look specifically at Embedded Software techniques to save power and energy.  This is a well known Power Saving Strategy which doesn’t always get the recognition it deserves.  It is also something you have to design into the Power Management Plan from the beggining.

For this example, we will use the MSP430 from TI which has some of the best Power Saving and Power Consumption figures in the industry.  We have used them to create devices that run from a pair of AAA batteries for 2 years and which have time based control algorithms so that they can’tbe used in a purely event driven mode.  Here is how it works:

Low Power Sleep Mode

This shows the power consumption versus time.  In Low Power Sleep Mode the consumption is close to zero.  Almost no power consumed.  Then depending on what is happening it wakes up to varying degrees.

Get the best Electronic Sleep

So this is how you take advantage of this:

• make the time between wake ups as long as possible
• make the time awake as short as possible
• only turn on the peripherals needs for a particular wake period

Now if you system only has to wake once every minute then you can get low power operation from a lot of different processors.  If it wakes many times a second then you need a processor that gives you lots of ways to reduce power during wake, reduce the time awake, and increase the interval between wakes.

MSP430 Sleep

So back to the MSP430. It has Power Conservation features that allow it to do all three better than most.  Here is the list:

• Digitally Controlled Oscillator DCO allows it to wake and run quickly
• Can run a Timer from a 32KHz crystal making interval timing very low power
• Can use the DCO to set the run speed and so shorten the wake time
• Lot’s of Power Down Modes so you can always find one that suits your application
• Peripherals can be Shut Down when not in use
• Can run down to 1.8V – more on that later but it can also help here

Low Power System Architecture

To take advantage of all this, you have to develop the System Architecture so that  takes advantage of this.  An example from a very long life application we did runs like this:

• 32Hz Oscillator runs a timer that generates a 1 second wake
• User input keys set up to wake on change of state from high to low
• Use DCO at 1MHz to quickly wake, execute & sleep again
• Use State Machines to allow modules to execute predictably with eratic timing
• Have early exit tests to prevent unnecessary Code Execution

The result is an application that runs a process with User Interaction, LED Indicators, and a 2 week cycle where the average Power Consumption is 20uA at 2.7V or 54uW.  Of this, less than half is the processor executing the software and the single biggest energy use is the intermittently flashed LED Indicators.

To learn more, check out this more comprehensive article on “Low power MCU selection criteria and sleep mode implementation” from embedded.com which provides more examples.

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

What is so good about Low Power Electronics?

If you read my last post, you would have noticed that this has the potential to reduce overall Power Requirements.  Up until now,  only Battery Operated Devices have really cared about Power Consumption.  If you could plug it into a wall outlet then all was OK unless you were consuming more power than a standard circuit allowed.

Today, things are different.  Climate Change is a global concern and reducing the Carbon Footprint for a product is important, regardless of what sort of power it consumes.

If we can reduce the Power Consumption of an appliance by 50%, then provided it’s Electronics Manufacture does not add that back again, we have a net Carbon Footprint gain.  In fact, if we can do this across all products then we will meet our Global Carbon Reduction target of 50% by 2050 with this strategy alone.

How to reduce Electronics Power Consumption

This is not a new topic, and much of what I present here represents the combined experience of the Electronics and Embedded Software industry.  Here is the short list:

• reduce the Supply Voltage for Microcontrollers, Microprocessors and CMOS Circuits in general
• use Sleep Modes and keep the Wake Periods as short as possible
• replace High Power Consumption Devices with Low Power Consumption Devices
• replace high utilisation Digital Filters with Analogue Electronics equivalents
• replace Polled Operating Modes with Event Driven Operating Modes
• use Low Power Smart Peripherals that Wake the rest of the System only when required
• reduce the Time To Wake and the Time To Sleep
• optimise the Software Execution Flow
• use Energy Harvesting
• Remove power from sections of Electronics Circuitry when not in use

There is overlap and interdependency between these but that is a good starting point.

Next I will start look at specific examples.

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

In this post we will look at the Product Development Process and how to get improved outcomes.  But first here is a fun graphic made from our logo.

Successful Endeavours - Making Electronics and Embedded Software Work

Product Development Process

The Product Development Process is intended to reliably deliver new products for manufacture or distribution.  This is a critical component of a Product Strategy where you are creating the product rather than sourcing it from a supplier.   So you would think that it should be a highly optimised, well oiled machine that reliably delivers successful products. Alas that is not always the case. With 30 years of experience in Developing Products for a wide range of industries I have seen my share of projects handled well and not so well. Here are some general principles I have gleaned from my experience in Successful Product Development Projects:

• Risks must be identified and managed.  Track them and eliminate them as soon as possible.
• Anything clever or tricky needs to be checked by someone else.
• Everything else also gets checked.  Design reviews, code walk-throughs and prototypes save time, money and heart ache later on.
• Hold the timeline.  Foster an attitude that slippage is not acceptable.
• Test and check everything.
• It’s not finished until no-one has to do another thing to it.

So six core principles.  They are inter related of cousre.  Let’s look at how these work out in practice.

Successful Product Development Principles

Lets look at how each of these priciples can be used to improve the likelihood of a Successful Product Development Project.

Risk Management

Risk Management is an old idea.  Not surprising since risks have always existed. Did you know that during the Manhattan Project it was determined that there was a chance that a fission bomb could ignite the whole atmosphere ?  Having got contradictory reports the argument was eventually settled by a report showing that although it was possible, it was unlikely.  How comfortable would you feel running that risk ? Fortunately the average Development Project is dealing with much more mundane risks such as achieving Technical Requirements such as:

• Power Consumption
• Unit Manufacturing Cost
• Performance Criteria

But the approach is still the same:

• Identify the risk
• Work out how to ameliorate the risk – reduce it – or eliminate it
• Do tests to confirm the risk has been dealt with
• Iterate until it is no longer a risk

Review the clever bits

Test Everything - Clever Design Needs Test

Where possible, any particularly clever or tricky areas of the project need to be reviewed by someone not involved in the everyday work of the project.  This is primarily to ensure that assumptions are challenged.  If you can’t get an outsider to do the review, use a process like Six Thinking Hats by Edward De Bono which can allow team members to step outside their emotional and assumptive predispositions.  Unchallenged assumptions are unmanaged risks.

Review the rest of the project

Review Everything

The astute amongst would have noticed that I am proposing everything gets reviewed.  But the tricky bits get extra review.  This section is for the regular bits. Reviews are an essential tool to find mistakes early and eliminate problems down the track.  You don’t have to solve a problem you don’t have.   Or as Jack Ganssle famously quipped “Skip Bugging To Speed Delivery“. The whole article refers to using Code Review and Design Review to find problems early and fix them so they don’t become much bigger problems later on. Imagine a scenario where a Software Bug causes an electric motor to try and spin backward every now and again and then corrected itself almost immediately.  You would get a momentary shudder or jerk followed by correct motion and it would only happen every now and again.  How would you determine that this was a software fault and where the fault lay?  It could be symptomatic of any number of issues including Mechanical Design and Electrical Design. How about this similar real world case.  I won’t mention the company, but their elevators had an Integer Overflow problem in the motor controller that caused the elevator to go in the wrong direction, about once a month, for half a floor.  Very disconcerting to the passengers if they pressed up, and promptly dropped half a floor before then going up.  Fortunately they found it and fixed it before it happened to someone at the top or bottom floor. All the Software Industry Metrics show for that for Software Development; Design Review, Code Review, Unit Tests and System Simulation save money and time.  And yet in many projects they don’t happen enough or are done after the event as a Quality Assurance box ticking activity where they add mostly cost and little in the way of value.  Lean Coding argues that you can reduce your Software Development Budget in particular by doing Code Inspections during the project as part of the Risk Management and Quality Management process. By reducing the bugging, you can reduce the debugging.

Stick to the Timeline

Project Development Timeline

An attitude that the schedule slipping is normal can be very costly.  Some examples of how to avoid this are:

• Develop and Simulate the Software before the Hardware is ready
• Prototype early and thoroughly
• buy in IP where it makes financial sense – this can also reduce risk
• get expert assistance with areas outside your competence
• review regularly and honestly

As someone who has done a lot of team leading and project management, I have learned to ask about progress in more than one way.  I find the following to be very common: Manager: “This module is estimated as 10 days of work to complete.  How complete is it”? Developer: “About 80%”. Manager: “How many more days of work are required to fully finish everything”? Developer: “To fully finish everything, I would think 6 more days would cover it all”. The discrepancy is easy to spot.  People estimate high on progress because they want to please.  They also like to finish well so they tend to estimate conservatively on required effort.  In practice the real answer lies somewhere between the 2 extremes.  If the task had already consumed 6 days of effort then it is likely to run late. If you have ever built a house you might have experienced the knock on effect it has when one trades person doesn’t turn up and everyone else misses their scheduled action time because they are now waiting on a predecessor task, the trades person who has to come back again, before they can start their task.  The same thing happens on projects. So fight hard to hold to the schedule.  It is better to over resource a task (according to the plan) and get it done than to let everything and everyone slip which usually costs a lot more. Additionally, it is quite common that the later you are in the market, the lower the overall profit.  So it is worth holding the schedule for this reason as well.

Test and Check Everything

 

Test Everything

This is another Risk Management related principle. Don’t assume it will be OK.  Even if you have done it 100 times before, test it again this time.   Make sure it really is OK.  This ensures it really is 100% complete. This also implies that you are going to design things so they can be tested.  Another principle.  Design For Testability or somestimes called Design For Test. Do it.  It will save you time, effort, money and sleep. Test Driven Development is another example of a Modern Development Methodology where you set up the test first then develop the product so it passes the test.  If the Product Requirements change, you change the tests first, show that the old Product Design fails the test, then update the Product Design until it now passes the test.

It is not finished until no-one has to do anything else to it

Many tasks are called complete but they aren’t.  The documents might be checked into the Revision Control System, also known as a Version Control System or Version Management System,  but it isn’t complete until it is 100% tested, 100% integrated, 100% reviewed and 100% signed off and no-one has to do another thing. This also means that when tasks are identified that weren’t thought of in the original Project Plan, you then add them and don’t try and fiddle them into existing tasks.  This is different to working out the fine detail of a task and realising it is under resourced or over resourced on the Project Plan. You also want the extra tasks visible on the Project Management Plan so when you do the next project you have evidence that they were required last time and can make allowances for them.

Trip Assurance for Developers

Satisfaction Guaranteed

In marketing, the term Trip Assurance refers to the client having a clear expectation of this transaction or experience being a good one, just like every other one has been.  I think we can begin to develop some of the same as developers whereby projects can be routinely good experiences and likely to be so each time.

 This post is also available as an eZine article with Expert Author classification.

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.

Electronics Manufacturers are the people we serve

A common question we are asked is what sort of Electronics Manufacturers do we Develop Products for?

So I thought I would compile 3 lists:

• The first is a list of the Electronics and Embedded Software product types we have worked on
• The second list is a list of the industries we have Developed Products for
• And the third list is the Technologies we have worked with so far

I might have to regularly update this third list since knowledge and technology are constantly expanding.  Before I do the lists I’d like to present a video that specifically addresses this last point.  This is very much worth thinking about.  Enjoy.

Electronics and Embedded Software Products

Did you notice the section from 1:45 to 2:15?  We are being prepared for jobs that don’t yet exist, technologies that haven’t been invented, and problems we don’t even know we will have!

Here is the list of some of the Electronics and Embedded Software Products that do already exist and which we have helped to create:

(more…)

Electronics Development and Success

Hello again,

A couple of posts ago in Electronics Manufacture Shines in Melbourne I said I would explain the origins of our company name.  Many have suggested that Successful Endeavours sounds more like a personal coaching enterprise or a business that handles products by people like:

• Brian Tracy
• Tony Robbins
• Marc Dussault
• Deepak Chopra
• Zig Ziglar
• John Maxwell
• Arthur Cherrie
• …

And the list could go on for a long time.

While I do hope we motivate and encourage our clients to improve their results, we assist them by undertaking activities such as:

Electronics Development Activities

• Electronic Circuit Design
• Electronic Circuit Simulation
• Analogue Electronics
• Analogue Design
• Printed Circuit Board Design
• Printed Circuit Board Layout
• Electronic Prototyping
• Electronic Testing
• Embedded Software Design
• Embedded Software Development
• Embedded Software Coding
• Embedded C
• Embedded Software Debug

Development Statistics

The name came from some industry statistics on the success rate for Product Development.  You can read more details in Reducing Electronics and Embedded Software Product Development Costs and I will summarise here:

• 80% of embedded development projects fail in someway or another
• Embedded software is 80% of the cost of an embedded development project
• Embedded software is responsible for 80% of the delays and shortcomings

Successful Product Development

So it seemed to me that many Product Development Projects are unsuccessful endeavours.  I wanted to change that.  We have a success rate significantly better than all the industry norms. Our short USP ( Unique Selling Proposition ) is:

We Make Stuff Work

That’s it.  The details are complex but the philosophy is simple.  So for me, Electronics and Embedded Software Development should be a routinely Successful Endeavour.  And so the name Successful Endeavours was chosen.

I am passionate and committed to assisting Australian Electronics Manufacturers who want to keep making their products in Australia.  Made In Australia is what we are pursuing and we are focusing on this segment.

Ray Keefe has been developing high quality and market leading electronics products in Australia for nearly 30 years.  For more information go to his LinkedIn profile. This post is Copyright © Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd.