SlimSoft's Blog

Erik Udsten re-joins GE Fanuc

2007-09-25T10:26:00.000-07:00

SlimSoft is happy to congratulate Erik Udsten for being named Software Global Product Manager for GE Fanuc.

Up until recently, Erik has been an investor, partner, and director of SlimSoft Solutions. As part of this new role with GE, Erik was required to sever these ties to SlimSoft. We have been very fortunate to have Erik on our team over the past year. During this time, Erik's advice and guidance has helped make SlimSoft a stronger company... a legacy which will continue for years to come.

We are very excited by what this move means for the future of GE Fanuc's products, which in turn, given our focus on those products, translates into a bright future for SlimSoft as well. We know that Erik's software experience, and deep understanding of Manufacturing in general, will translate into a new life and vision for the GE Proficy suite of products.

We look forward to working, and strengthening our partnership with GE Fanuc as time moves on and look forward to big things from Erik.

Congratulations Erik... now get to work :-)

SilmSoft Welcomes Chuck McCurley to the Team!

2007-03-07T08:51:00.000-08:00

It is with great pleasure that I announce the latest addition to the SlimSoft team! Chuck McCurly has joined SlimSoft in the position of MES Project Manager.

Based out of Atlanta, GA, Chuck has over 15 years experience working in Manufacturing IT. In fact, Chuck was one of the very first customers to work with Proficy Plant Applications!

Chuck has seen it all when it comes to implementing Plant Applications. In his previous job, working for a large milled and consumer products manufacturer, he implemented, and acted as Project Manager and Team Leader, on MES projects ranging from Plant Floor Integration, Quality Management, Traceability, all the way up to SAP Integration.

Chuck's deep experience in Manufacturing, coupled with his experience leading projects and teams, makes him the perfect addition to our group of Manufacturing Consultants. Chuck further strengthens SlimSoft's depth of applied manufacturing solutions and experience.

Welcome Chuck, we're excited to have you on the team!

Erik Udstuen Joins SlimSoft

2006-12-08T13:46:00.000-08:00

Today I have the pleasure of announcing that Erik Udstuen has joined as a partner in SlimSoft. Erik has a history with the principals of SlimSoft through a number of successful business relationships stretching back almost 10 years. We are excited by the prospects his involvement will now bring to SlimSoft.

Many of you know Erik from his time building Mountain Systems. He was a pioneer in configurable MES solutions and has first-hand knowledge of developing and deploying software to a wide variety of industries and locales.

Equally important is the fact that Erik has been where we are and understands where we are going as a company. We, at SlimSoft, believe that surrounding ourselves with people having this kind of experience is critical to our success.

As we evolve our business from a pure services company to one that is also focused on software development, Erik's experience will help to guide our product vision and business strategy. This is the next important step in the continued growth of our company.

Welcome on board Erik. The vote of confidence will not go unrewarded!

Web Based Excel Reports

2006-12-04T09:59:00.000-08:00

Over the years I have developed many very complex reporting applications using SQL and Excel VBA. SQL was used to retrieve and analyze the data and Excel VBA was used to develop the presentation layer. This past year though there has been an increase demand for web based reports so we started looking for a Web Based Control that would give me the same flexibility of customization as VBA Excel. The object that made the grade for us was Spread for Web Forms developed by Far Point Technologies. It is a web based grid completely customizable to the cell level just like Excel. By using Spread for Web Forms I was able to keep the complex SQL stored procedure code that I had written to import the data into Excel and I was able to re-write the Excel VBA using Spread to reproduce the presentation layer. Considering that the development effort is about 80% for the stored procedure and 20% for the presentation layer, by using Spread we were able to preserve 80% of the work.

Spread supports both VB.Net and C#, works in both Visual Studio 2003 and 2005 and is relatively easy to use. After about a week going through the developers guide and code examples I was able to start coding my first project. For more complex problems that were not covered by the developers guide I found the Far Point forum extremely helpful. On the forum you can post questions, send code examples etc. and within a couple of hours you have an answer from the Far Point support staff. Their relatively quick response time to questions and their great supply of code examples allowed me to keep a good pace of development even when I was a relative rookie at developing web based reports.

If you are looking at re-developing your Excel reports in the .NET environment, I strongly recommend you check out Spread for Web Forms.

LAUNCH: SlimSoft Costa Rica is open for business

2006-10-31T08:12:00.000-08:00

After more than one and a half years in the making, SlimSoft is pleased to announce that our Costa Rica based office is up and running. Our first batch of new employees have been trickling in over the past month and our first phase of hiring is now complete. We are very pleased with the team we have assembled and they are already starting to turn out some great work.

Over the coming months, as our team grows both in size and experience, we are confident that our vision of providing High Value MES Solutions at a price point which is a true game changer will be proven to be a reality.

Left to Right: Jose Martinez, Roberto Del Cid, Marco Jimenez, Priscilla Oconitrillo,

Andres Fernandez, Paula Lafuente, Diego Cordero, and Eddie Arias

Finally, Postal Mail Evolves!

2006-06-29T18:13:00.000-07:00

As you have probably already figured out reading this blog, the leaders of SlimSoft lead a pretty nomadic life! We spend a lot of time on the road at customer sites as well as getting things rolling at our Costa Rican operation. Most parts of running a virtual office have been solved by technology for some time. We can do all our banking online, including wiring money around, etc., our phone system, Switchvox, is based on VoIP, which means it follows us anywhere, and many of our customers now pay their invoices by wire payments.

Up until now, we have continued to struggle with paper based mail. We still have a few customers who pay us by cheque and more importantly, from time to time we receive important communication from government or other bodies which arrives by mail. If we are away on an extended trip when this happens, it is sometimes too late to deal with by the time we return.

A few weeks ago, this problem was finally solved! Earth Class Mail Online
Postal Mail Forwarding Service (ECM) is a new service from Document Command which completely solves our paper based mail dilemma! When mail is sent to our company address, it is automatically forwarded to ECM. When they receive it, they scan the envelope and place the scanned image into a secure web portal for us to review. We also receive an email notifying us that new mail has arrived. We can then look at the envelope image and decide what to do with the mail item. We can recycle it if we know it is junk mail, package it up with other items and forward it to wherever we are via either overnight, or slower if appropriate, or best of all, request it to be opened and scanned. We can now handle any important mail in days, rather than weeks, regardless of if we are in Vancouver, Costa Rica, or anywhere else in the world.

In the coming months, I am told they also will be able to scan cheques that we receive for payment of our services and automatically insert them into the bank clearing system. When this service is live, it will completely close the loop for us on the challenges of our nomadic lives!

SlimSoft Recognized as a GE Fanuc PSP

2006-06-21T19:55:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce that SlimSoft has been recognized by GE Fanuc as a Premier Solution Provider. With this recognition, we join an exclusive club of Solution Providers that GE Fanuc identifies as their recommended partners for performing integration service on their products.

SlimSoft is focused on delivering solutions based on GE Fanuc's Proficy Plant Applications. Our team of Industry Experts will ensure that you get the most you can out of your choice to implement a Proficy solution. These resources, coupled with our soon to be launched near-shore offering based in Costa Rica, will provide you with a solution which exceeds your expectations while delivering unprecedented value.

SlimSoft Costa Rica Is One Step Closer to Reality

2006-04-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

We are happy to announce that the renovations to our office space at ULTRAPARK Business Centre are now complete. We took possession of our new office on Monday April 3rd but will not be moving in until the end of the month. The next big milestone will be securing our first services contract for Costa Rican resources. We are optomistic that this will happen in the coming weeks. Once we have secured our first contract, we will proceed to purchase furniture and most importantly, hire our first Costa Rican employees!

We are very happy with the outcome; the ULTRAPARK renovation team delivered the job on-time, and to specification. We are looking forward to moving into our new office as it marks an important milestone for SlimSoft. Once the office is up and running, the key components of our business plan will be in place and our focus will shift to delivering on our goal of providing quality services at a rate which will be a game changer for the MES marketspace.

Software Pricing Models and Company Focus

2006-01-20T17:04:00.000-08:00

A concept came to me today as I was driving, that is probably a well documented business concept (or dismissed as nonsense long ago), but it was new to me. I hope that doesn't reveal any lack of business acumen :-).

The concept is the correlation between a software company's focus and how it licenses its software.

Let's look at one software licensing scenario. Say that you charge $5,000 for your software license and then charge $1,000 each year for upgrades and maintenance. In order to grow and increase revenue, you need to concentrate your efforts on new customers. The maintenance revenue is important to you, but new sales are going to be your main focus as one new customer provides the same revenue as five existing customers. You tend to take the existing customers for granted, because losing one or two isn't that financially significant.

In a second software licensing scenario, let's say that you charge $2,000 each year for the license, upgrades and maintenance, but there is no up-front cost. In order for you to grow and increase revenue, you need to concentrate on maintaining your existing customers as well as adding new ones.

I believe that moving to the second scenario will change the way your software company works. Your focus will be on quality control and providing complete functionality that meets the needs of your customers, as opposed to meeting the needs of the sales demo or request for proposal currently sitting on your desk. I believe that the second scenario drives more of a long-term focus than a short-term focus. Your decisions will be based more on building a stable of loyal customers than on meeting your latest sales quotas. Functionality will be more attuned with the real world and will take less iterations to become usable. The net result is a better product and that will lead to long-term success and easier sales efforts. You also make it attractive for potential customers to try your software. "The proof will be in the pudding", not in the packaging.

Does anyone have any thoughts? This is basically the model that most Application Service Providers use, but I don't see it applied to Industrial Software products.

Sometimes, the obvious isn't so obvious.

2006-01-12T13:35:00.000-08:00

Recently, we started renting a house in Costa Rica, as we expect to be spending a lot of time in Costa Rica as we start up our operations there. The day we moved into our house, I was deeply concerned to discover the hot water did not seem to work in the shower. I looked around for the fuse box and the water tank and determined that there was no issue there. So what could be the problem? A few hours later, I turned on the cold water to brush my teeth and discovered that steaming hot water was coming out. Eureka... the taps are reversed. After I recovered from my embarrassment for not figuring this out sooner, I concluded that things were "backwards" here... As far as I know, the standard is always Hot on the Left, Cold on the Right.

Last weekend, I was ranting about this to a Costa Rican and they reminded me that in Spanish, Hot is "Caliente" and Cold is "Helado"... hmm... H = Cold and C = Hot. All of the sudden it began to make sense. The person who installed the taps put the H in the right spot, but put the "Helado" water into that tap.

The moral of the story is that when you are doing something that you assume is completely obvious, always take a step back and think about the un-obvious as well.

What are the Boundaries?

2006-01-04T12:45:00.000-08:00

In a numerical methods computer course that I took in university (just a short time ago in my mind), one of the first things that we learned to deal with were limits and boundaries. We had to write a simple program that would divide two numbers. The numbers would be input parameters to our routine.

The exercise sounded simple enough to a first year university student. Was it though? We quickly learned that we were not going to be the only users of this simple little routine. When it was handed over to our professor, non-numeric inputs and a zero denominator quickly brought a poorly written routine to its knees. Lesson learned!

The evolution of Business Automation has occurred independently across many disciplines and technologies over the years. From the shop floor to the corporate offices expertise was developed independently across these disciplines and technologies. Boundaries and limitations were learned and understood.

With the advent of MES we are now being challenged to understand these boundaries across multiple disciplines and technologies. This is not an easy feat and definitely requires an array of inputs from various people and sources.

Who, and what, are the input parameters to your MES solution? Is it a multi-disciplined approach? Will your MES solution have limitless success or is there a hidden zero in one of your denominators? Taking the time to think about these answers could make the difference between getting an A+ or a B-.

A New Year and a Growing Team

2005-12-31T07:52:00.000-08:00

It is with great pleasure that I announce the latest additions to the SlimSoft team! Effective January 1st, Barry Stewart, Dan Hinchey, and Mike Crutch have taken the position of MES Project Manager.

Barry Stewart, based out of Cincinnati, OH has over 10 years experience working in Control and Computer Integrated Manufacturing and over 4 years experience implementing with Proficy Plant Applications. Barry brings with him a wealth of experience and a great deal of potential. Barry's excellent knowledge of control systems and PLCs will also be a great asset moving forward to fill out our overall process expertise.

Dan Hinchey, based out of Halifax, NS, Canada, has over 18 years experience in Process Control and Computer Integrated Manufacturing and over 5 years experience working with Proficy Plant Applications. Dan has implemented solutions using Proficy in a number of industries in both Europe and North America and we look forward to that experience further strengthening our company's expertise in MES.

Mike Crutch, based out of Vancouver, BC, Canada, joins us with a very diversified background. Mike has over three years experience working with Proficy Plant Applications and previously has been an IT Manager of a Pulp Mill in Indonesia, as well as being a Certified General Accountant (CGA). Mike's mix of industry experience, coupled with business and finance experience is a tremendous asset to us moving forward. The role of MES Project Manager requires a blend of both and Mike will bring an excellent perspective to our projects which will help to ensure that our customers will benefit both technically and financially from the solutions we implement.

Please join me in welcoming Barry, Dan and Mike to the team. Renata, Brent, and I are ecstatic to have them on board. This is a great way to start a new year and we look forward to a great 2006 and beyond.

The Virtual Office - Challenge #1: Paper Mail

2005-12-27T07:57:00.000-08:00

At SlimSoft we have embraced the virtual office concept for our employees. We all work from home, except Costa Rican's who will be working from an office, and we hire people were they live. This has resulted in our company having to incorporate in three different countries (Canada, USA and Costa Rica) and register in one US state (Ohio) and 3 different Canadian provinces (British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia). So with companies in 3 different countries and an option of having employees spread all over the world one of the biggest challenges so far has been figuring out what to do with our paper mail.

Bills are not too bad; most utilities and home services like internet and cable have the option of automatic payment and an electronic invoice. The challenge here is to have a central location where to view them all. E-Post in Canada has a good solution, but not all vendors are signed up with E-post so the virtual user has to have many logins and passwords to keep track of all the electronic invoices.

Bank correspondence is another challenge, most banks these days support e-banking which allows the virtual user to view statements online, but they do not have a good history. RBC in Canada for example holds 3 months of regular account statements and 1 month of credit card statements. When you are running a business this is not adequate, I would like to have at least the past 16 month available for searching and reviewing.

Government mail depends on the country; our experience so far with the B.C. government in Canada is very good, we have been able to obtain any information we need and pay our taxes and permits through the internet, the challenge here is that the assessment notices still come in the mail, go figure why can't those go to E-Post as well. As for the other two countries, Costa Rica and the USA we are still learning, the incorporation process so far has been web based.

Vendor invoices and payments like accountans, lawyers and insurance companies, are also an issue, only one of our vendors invoices us through e-mail and only one accepts credit card, the ideal for us would be to get invoices electronically and be able to pay the bills with a bank transfer...maybe some day, it is possible in Europe already.

Lastly customer payment via cheque is also an issue, some of our customers pay with a wire transfer but a few still use the old fashioned method of a cheque, which makes it difficult for us since we are not always in Vancouver.

So in the mean time, while the world catches up to our virtual needs we have engaged a company called Lason to receive and scan our mail. Lason will open all our mail, send us an e-mail notice if they have received a cheque or something that needs inmediate attention and will scan and e-mail the rest, all mail will receive a file number so it is easy to find at a later date. Mail will be filed and stored in boxes in Lason's vault until it is picked up by one of us. So no matter where we happend to be in the world Brent, Andrew and I will be able to deal with our business obligations...but for the time being we still have to carry a cheque book.

The Year In Review

2005-12-24T08:48:00.000-08:00

Since all the papers and magazines are publishing their "Year in Review" articles now, I figured that we should get in on the action.

2005 marks the first full year of active operations for SlimSoft. The company began active operations on November 22, 2004. At that time, Renata was SlimSoft. We went through our first phase of explosive growth on February 1st. The company doubled in size as I joined as well!
We were very fortunate in that almost immediately, we had more than enough work to keep us busy. Renata and I had a good vision of where we were heading, and were pleased that step one of our plan (paying the bills!) was taking shape quite quickly.

We headed to Costa Rica for a test trip during March and April to see if the longer term plan of establishing an office in Costa Rica would be practical. We came back from that first trip pleased with the potential and looking forward to the experience. Little did we know how soon it would begin to take shape.

Around the time we came back from Costa Rica, we began to discuss adding our first employee. On June 1st, Mike Vanderveer joined us. Mike represented another aspect of our master plan... A virtual office for our North American resources. Mike is based out of Ottawa, and has given us the opportunity to learn what's involved with bringing a remote resource up to speed. I'm happy to say he is doing great!

More growth was soon in store for SlimSoft. And this was a big one. Around the time we were just bringing on Mike, I began to have discussions with Brent Seely about joining our company. Brent joined SlimSoft on July 1st and with him brought a great deal of industry experience and respect. Most importantly of all, having Brent on board allowed me the flexibility to begin to shift focus towards execution of our Costa Rican plans. This was a game changer and allowed us to accelerate our plans significantly.

Since Brent joined the company, we have been busy on a number of fronts. Costa Rica is quickly becoming a reality for SlimSoft. We have incorporated a Costa Rican subsidiary, leased an office space, and are getting ready to begin recruiting employees. We are confident that once our operations are up and running, that these resources, coupled with some high end North American consultants (more on that later...), will be a game changer for the MES and Manufacturing IT solutions space. "North American Quality at Near Shore Rates" is our mission and we are confident we will succeed.

For those of you who frequent our website, you know that we have been advertising for the past few months to attract new North American talent to SlimSoft. On January 1st, we will be announcing the addition of 3 new resources. Renata, Brent and I are extremely pleased with the individuals who will be joining us and look forward to our customers benefiting from their experience moving forward.

So, for those counting, SlimSoft will be 7 people on Jan 1st. 700% growth in one year! :-). My crystal ball for the year to come is a very optimistic one. By this time next year, we hope to have our Costa Rican offices in operation with somewhere between 10 and 20 employees. Our North American team will be in full swing providing the high end consulting and design solutions needed to allow our customers to fully leverage our Near Shore team.

In closing, I would like to thank everyone who has believed in us over the past year. We will continue to do whatever it takes to ensure that your faith in us continues to grow.

Happy New Year and see you in 2006!

The Advent Calendar

2005-12-14T16:47:00.000-08:00

It seems like the appropriate time of the year to draw a parallel between developments at SlimSoft and the Christmas tradition of the Advent Calendar. Almost every day we receive feedback or information that confirms SlimSoft is heading in the right direction. Without going into any details, the last couple months have been very exciting in terms of partnerships, customer relationships, expansion into Costa Rica and new hires. Much of this work started many months ago and we should be able to make some announcements within a few weeks. All in all, it is an exciting time.

My electronic Advent Calendar happens to work through instant messaging. Every day, it seems there is a message from Andrew or Renata that starts with "You there? Guess what?". Not as sweet as a piece of candy, but much more satisfying and longer lasting.

Happy holidays to you all and best wishes for 2006.

A Web Based Plant Floor

2005-11-10T16:52:00.000-08:00

About five years ago, I can remember having a conversation with my friend Peter, who at that time was a colleague of mine in Belgium, about a material tracking system and its strategy to move towards becoming a completely web based platform. My interest was certainly tweaked by this concept. At the time though, I basically discounted it as not being a practical idea. Why? My concern was the 24/7 nature of the plant floor environment and whether a web based platform was reliable enough to handle this environment. I also doubted that the environment was rich enough to be able to present a robust enough user experience for use on the Plant Floor. Mouse right-clicks, drag and drops, and drop down menus are all excellent components of a typical office focused application, but on the plant floor, where touch screens and other such devices are prevalent, they don't work as well. Here its more important to have simple, intuitive displays with big buttons and very clear user prompts and feedback. The solution must be task oriented rather than function loaded.

Times have changed...

While the above concerns still linger in my mind, they have now become design constraints, rather than road blocks. In today's web based world, I believe it is possible to make web based applications for the plant floor. The coming wonders of Web 2.0 are making this even more of a reality.

Imagine the potential ramifications of this. A web based application has no software to install, no moving parts to break, and the ability to upgrade almost on the fly. Even in a 24/7 operation. Small, remote operations could share a common corporate server, or an ASP style Hosted model could even be deployed.

Can it be done? Definitely. Its now a question of when...

MES - Real Time versus Transactional

2005-10-29T21:40:00.000-07:00

Manufacturing Execution Systems reside in the informational space between Control Systems and Business Systems. As Control Systems operate in a Real Time fashion and Business Systems are Transactional, this raises a real quandary. MES systems must be proficient in both modes of operation.

Over the years, some MES systems have evolved from Control Systems by adding relational databases and historical archives. These have been moderately successful, however the transactional challenges of:

Locking Data for Closed Accounting Periods,
Rolling Back Transactions,
Editing Historical Data, and
Structuring the Data for Easy Ad-hoc Analysis

have usually been poorly supported. If the information cannot be easily analyzed, corrected and manipulated, it is not very useful.

Similarly, there have been MES systems that evolved from Business Systems by adding OPC drivers and PLC connectors. These have also been moderately successful, however the real time challenges of:

Reacting Immediately to Events,
Easy-to-Use Shop Floor Displays, and
The Ability to Alert and Continue Operating

have usually been poorly supported. Losing a few seconds on every batch can mean the difference between a plant continuing to operate or shutting its doors.

I can remember many conversations with a plant's new accountant, who couldn't understand why we consistently had 3-5% yield losses that were not accounted for. In his mind, there should be metering and equations that explain the process accurately every time. In the real world, there are numerous variations in raw ingredients, metering errors and other disturbances that make it impossible to be accurate all the time (if ever).

The key point of this anecdote is that an MES system must deal with the realities of complex manufacturing processes, as well as communicating to the new accountant in a way that satisfies his needs. This isn't easy and is the key strength of successful MES systems (and MES Engineers).

How well does your MES system communicate with your Business System and Control System? Does it do both well? If you are transitioning from a Manufacturing Information System to a Manufacturing Execution System, these communication channels will give you the most grief.

Border Crossings and Visas

2005-10-06T09:18:00.000-07:00

In today's global economy, it is common to travel outside your own country to support projects for your customers. We, at SlimSoft, routinely travel to the United States and as such, we require a work visa to pass through US Customs. The NAFTA agreement simplified the procedure for Canadians obtaining visas to work in the States, and for Americans wishing to work in Canada. The most common visa is called a TN Visa and you can get one if your expertise and work falls within one of a few very specific categories. Fortunately for us, we meet the requirements and have been granted many visas over the years.

Even though it has been simplified, it can still be a very stressful experience to go through the application process. It involves quite a bit of paperwork and an interview by a Customs Officer. One wrong answer or one missing document, and you need to restart the process. Beyond wasting time, you also miss your flights and appointments. As part of our philosophy of leveraging expertise and maximizing efficiency, SlimSoft decided to hire Paul, Frank & Collins (www.pfclaw.com), a Vermont based law office, to prepare our documents whenever we need to go through the TN Visa application process. Three very successful applicatons later, we are very glad we made this choice and will continue to use this firm.

For any of you that travel between the States and Canada regularly through Vancouver, I strongly suggest you acquire a NEXUS card (www.nexus.gc.ca). It shortcuts Canada and US Customs, as well as Security lines in Canada. It will save you a lot of time. Although the NEXUS card is still in a pilot program, it is expected to become available at all border crossings, next year. It is available to both Canadian and American residents.

One Offshore Experience... And Lesson

2005-09-15T12:55:00.000-07:00

After flirting with a number of web conferencing products, we finally made the plunge and forked out the cash for the "big guy". WebEx has defined the web conferencing space and I guess it was natural that we would wind up using them. So far we are very happy with their product. They deserve to be considered the "big guy".

The process of getting set up with WebEx was an interesting lesson for me in what to be careful of as we begin working our Costa Rican plans. As part of our service with WebEx, they provide a "branded" site for us to host our meetings. We sent them a mock-up of how we thought the site should look (within the boundaries of what is possible) and they then implemented it for us. The finished site can be found at http://slimsoft.webex.com/ and I'm very happy with how it turned out.

The lesson to be learned from this experience was the process we went through to get to this finished product. It turns out that WebEx uses resources based in China to do the branding for them. We all know the reason for this... it just makes financial sense to outsource a "backoffice" task like this to a lower cost center. But the key to making outsourcing a success is to ensure that your customers don't feel it impact the process. That's where WebEx struggled. Before we got things perfect, it took 3 tries. Now, 3 tries isn't that bad... the issue is that each try took a day to complete. Since the work was performed in China, the time zone difference meant that no direct feedback could be given. Everything had to be done via email. If these resources had been a phone call away, it would likely still have taken 3 tries, but it would have been completed in hours rather than days.

To me, this is the biggest challenge when working with offshore resources. Sometimes, time shifted resources work to your benefit. For example, providing support services on a 24 hour basis by moving your call center around the world with the sun. If you have the right project, handing off development or engineering to other resources as you go home for the day can really speed up the development cycle. Other times it can hurt.

It's all about perception. Will outsourcing and offshoring provide the same or better service to your customers at a lower price? Or will it offer a cheaper, but lower quality service?

As SlimSoft embarks on our own offshoring plans, we think our model will fall in the former. We believe that our customers should never feel the pain of an offshoring experience, only the benefit of a lower cost, and hopefully a better service as well.

Web Services and APIs

2005-09-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

One of my friends is working on a very large project for a major bank that involves creating a common user interface for over a dozen different applications. They are not consolidating any of the applications or retiring any of them. The goal is simply to integrate them through common displays and reports.

One of the key technologies that supports this project is that many of the applications have very rich Web Services support. This allows Web-based clients to be used for displays that have very tight integration of the different applications. These applications have gained a second life as the server logic remains in tact.

We've seen this trend with control systems for years, where SCADA systems brought rich new user environments to existing control systems with very little change to the controllers or I/O devices. The same trend is coming to MES and Business Systems. As these applications gain rich Web Services and APIs, their lifespans will increase considerably. Customers will have the option of using third party Portals, Reporting and User Interfaces to upgrade and integrate these systems. Efficiencies will be gained by reducing duplicate data entry and by structuring user displays that are specific to the user's tasks. Intelligent analysis displays will pull relevant information from different systems, in context. The key to this user-side integration is to have rich APIs and Web Services for all MES and Business Systems. Press for this functionality when you make your next purchase.

A Fresher, Cleaner Look.

2005-08-21T23:13:00.000-07:00

We finally managed to update our website to a new, cleaner look. There's still lots of work to do updating content and adding some more info about the company, etc, but it's a start. Stay tuned in the coming weeks as we continue to add content.

One key addition which we are excited to announce is a Careers page. And there's even a few postings!

We'd love to hear your feedback on our new layout. We look forward to your comments.

Interface Design

2005-08-15T18:05:00.000-07:00

A while back, Renata posted about a company called 37 Signals. For those of you that are customers of ours, you use a product by 37 Signals almost every day... our Project Central is a hosted solution provided by 37 Signals called Basecamp. 37 Signals is an interesting company who specialize in web development, and most importantly simplicity in web development. 37 Signals also maintains a blog called Signal vs. Noise which has become one of my daily readings.

Today's posting by Jason "Apprehension is the enemy of interface design" really hit home to me:

Go to your local grocery story or Home Depot, or whoever else has self checkout and just watch. Watch for about 10 minutes. You'll see the physical manifestation of apprehension caused by people interacting with machine-based interfaces.
You'll see lots of squinting, lots of "almost pushed" buttons, lots of hand sliding and gliding (when someone moves their hand around the screen seeking out the button the want to press), lots of slow motion ("the slower I go the less mistakes I can make"), lots of corner-eye looks to see what everyone else is doing, and lots of quick pull aways. It's as if the faster you pull your hand away from the screen the less likely the machine will think you meant to do something wrong.

The posting goes on from there to recommend some guidelines to solve these problems...

One of the comments to Jason's posting really made me chuckle... a common problem with these machines is how they rely on the weight of your goods to determine if you are telling the truth about what you have purchased. Sometimes they get messed up. He talked about how when he uses the machines, he found that a quick solution to this problem was to just put your foot on the scale as you scanned the items. Maxing out the scale solved the problem. While I don't recommend this technique to anyone, it reminds me of all the clever solutions I have come across in factories to "work around" deficiencies in software design.

Think about the above from the perspective of an HMI panel, or any other Plant Floor application. The problem is exactly the same. This goes back to my posting last month about Usability vs. Maintainability. Which in the end costs more money? An operator who struggles through every interaction with their computer, or the extra burden on IT staff to maintain the solution. As I said in my post on the subject, I hope that we can eventually get to the best of both worlds, but until then, my vote is with the operator. I think if a cost benefit analysis was performed, which measured the cost of downtime caused by mistakes, as well as the cost of inaccurate data resulting from a less than obvious user interface, that this cost would far outweigh the cost of maintaining the solution.

As we embark on new projects and opportunities, let's all try to take a step back and think through the who, what, where, when, why, and most important of all the how.

Iterative development

2005-08-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

SlimSoft has started exploring some of the concepts being promoted by the agile methodologies used in software development. One concept that I find intriguing is the concept of iterative development. I often develop large, complex reporting applications and I have experienced both development extremes: minimal specification and very detailed specification. In my experience minimal specification has turned into a monster that bogs and demoralizes the development team and frustrates the customer because it is hard for the team to stay focused and on track. A very detailed specification on the other hand tends to overwhelm the customer and stifle the creativity of the development team.

At SlimSoft we are gravitating to a development philosophy that is somewhere in the middle. I believe the development team needs to work from a prototype and vision document. The purpose of the vision document will be to describe the idea(s) being pursued and the prototype will allow the developers and the users to get a feel for the level of user interaction and the type of output required by the application. The development process will then be broken down into several iterations. The first iteration will be described in detail. After the first iteration is complete the development team and the customer will have the option of changing the vision document and prototype before the next iteration begins. This iterative process will continue until customer is satisfied with the overall solution.

I have realized that it is impossible to think of all the details in the early stages of a project. I have also realized that it is a futile exercise to try and do so, because inevitably ideas surface once a solution is incorporated into the production environment. I believe that a managed development effort that allows for iteration will result in a solution that will better meet the customers needs.

How would you respond to a project environment based on this philosophy?

The Best 29 Business Ideas in the World: Idea #2

2005-08-09T21:46:00.000-07:00

I have been subscribing to a great Magazine called Business 2.0 now for almost 2 years. I find this magazine to be the perfect blend of Business, Tech, and humour. I can't count the number of times over the last few years I have found myself quoting some article in the mag as I discuss something or other with the guys at lunch. If you have never read it, I highly recommend it!
I opened my mailbox today to find this month's issue. The front cover is "The 29 Best Business Ideas in the World". Interesting title... But what really got me excited was when I saw what their Idea #2 was: "Why Latin America is the New India".

As I posted last week, we are well on our way to establishing a presence in Costa Rica. This article is like a checklist of the reasons we are so keen on Costa Rica. The high level of education, time zone, flight time, pro-investment government, and progressive attitude all make Costa Rica an ideal place for SlimSoft to grow and prosper, while at the same time offering our customers a very attractive pricing. The fact that Renata and I also want to live there at the very least a large portion of the year helps as well, but without the above, this would remain a dream.

Before the end of this year, SlimSoft will have resources in Costa Rica ramping up their Manufacturing IT skills. This article reinforces that we are heading in the right direction not only for us, but perhaps more generally as well.

If you want to keep up with our progress, keep an eye on our Costa Rica Blog as well...

Proficy PA Users Forum

2005-08-07T11:55:00.000-07:00

Renata, Andrew and I have amassed over twenty years of experience with GE Fanuc's Proficy Plant Applications software suite. Over this period, we have been involved in many installations and have established some "best practices" for deploying the product. We would like to share this knowledge with you, as well as provide a forum for you to share your knowledge and solicit help from the rest of the Users Community.

We are considering hosting a Users website that will involve a bulletin board, chat room, file sharing area and other community type features. Before we spend a lot of time setting this up, we would like some feedback from you.

Is this redundant with another initiative?
Would this be beneficial to you?
Would you contribute?
Would your company allow you to contribute?
Would a moderator be required for a chat room?
Should the scope be constrained to Plant Applications, or should it include Historian and other modules in the software suite?
Should access be through a User Account, or is anonymous entry OK?

Looking forward to your comments.