Category: Product Development

Testing in the age of Coronavirus

One year ago, I graduated with degrees in communications and writing. In high school, I reluctantly took a physics class and regularly got somewhere around 50% on the tests. The last time I stepped foot in a math class was in May of 2014.

Suffice to say, I don’t know everything that’s going on technology-wise at Zebulon Solutions.

As our marketing specialist, I do ask questions about different projects and try to understand exactly what we’re working on. For some of the bigger projects that I can see and conceptualize, I volunteer my help for menial tasks: I am great at taking apart exactly one model of an industrial printer and putting them back together again; I’m excellent at pressing buttons on an air compressor and recording the measurement results (Gauge R&R, as the engineers call it); and I’m a true pro at opening and closing test fixtures over and over again without ever seeing the results. In the time of Coronavirus, the latter is one of the few things I can still do as we wait for the state, country, and world to resume some sort of normal so we can restart more projects.

With lots of companies shut down completely, Zebulon Solutions is lucky to still have projects to work on remotely and be able to keep up some semblance of business as usual, just virtually. While my engineering, supply chain, and operations-inclined co-workers focus on the work they can continue on their projects, I am left in an empty lab with the familiar test fixtures. In the time of Coronavirus, we’ve worked out ways to test two times a week, instead of our usual four, while maintaining health and safety protocols, since testing is a solitary activity. Plus, if anyone else needs to come into the office a different day, we just get to work with our disinfecting wipes.

In an NDA-compliant nutshell, my job is to test something that should work kind of like a motion sensor, for some motions but not for others. I complete said tests by opening, closing, making noise at, and moving items in relation to the sensor. The data I record while doing so moves wirelessly to the cloud, where hordes of our customers’ engineers (or so I imagine) can remotely and safely analyze this data. Because it’s long term testing to collect and analyze a lot of data (we’ve been at this for years), I usually do a small set of these procedures every day and one of my coworkers manages the data collection for the customer.

Almost everyone in the office has been roped into this particular testing at some point or another, and everyone seems to have their own strategies to break up the monotony: podcasts, music, stretching and small workouts between testing, and multitasking with other work. I’ve tried all of these, but seven hours of testing a week makes most of it seem old. Plus, multitasking seems to cause more mistakes than they’re worth, and I’m far too uncoordinated for the stretching and squats. I may find myself going back to music or podcasts but, ever since my discounted student subscription to Spotify Premium expired, commercials between the same Hamilton songs I’ve listened to a thousand times get tedious.

Testing procedures have also changed around over the months and the current tests involve quite a bit of sitting around so my newest tactic is watching YouTube videos. That’s right, in the time of Coronavirus I sit in an otherwise empty and silent lab for three and a half hours twice a week and kill off brain cells watching strange, niche comedy, like a good millennial.

For anyone somehow in a similar situation, may I recommend the following:

  1. The Try Guys

Since the Coronavirus panic started they’ve been releasing three videos a week plus two episodes of their podcast, which provides about three hours of content each week.

  1. Buzzfeed Multiplayer

In particular, The Sim’s 100 Baby Challenge. Now that it’s back for Season 2, a 25ish minute episode comes out every Saturday morning and I wait very patiently until I test on Tuesdays to watch it.

  1. Good Mythical Morning

I have no strategy for watching these in any order but there are a few thousand videos to keep me busy.

  1. Clips from any decent comedian

Saturday Night Live, John Oliver, Jimmy Kimmel and/or Fallon: YouTube is programmed to recommend the most popular clips and ones that are most similar to other videos you’ve watched. Sometimes the all-seeing algorithms are good for us.

 

While testing in the time of Coronavirus still gets me out of the house during an otherwise empty week, and gives those engineering hordes working from home their weekly data fix, I can’t wait to return to my regularly scheduled work days. where I can procrastinate on moving back to the lab, talk to my co-workers, and have office snacks in between rounds of testing.

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Working through a pandemic

It took just 10 days for China to build two hospitals in Wuhan to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak. It was a massive undertaking: 7,500 people worked around the clock on-site preparation, pouring concrete, putting up walls and ceilings, and installing high-tech equipment for two 1,000+ bed facilities. 

The weather in Wuhan is temperate, similar to Chattanooga, TN. Even so, these hospitals need massive heating/ventilation/air conditioning systems. A German corporation supplied the HVAC equipment for the projects, but they couldn’t get their technicians on-site to install it and bring it online. The border to Wuhan was closed. Thankfully, they’d already been working with an augmented reality guidance startup from India. This service allows remote technicians to see what the local operator is looking at and create on-screen annotations so the local operator can easily know which knobs to turn or screws to adjust (story here). People from across the world came together to provide hospital capacity for the citizens of Wuhan. We humans accomplish so much when we work towards a unified goal. 

However, that was just Round 1. Within our borders, things are still ramping up. Unprecedented travel restrictions are in place in an attempt to flatten the curve. Many people are squeezing into their makeshift offices, trying to get some work done. Supply chains are kinked, offices and factories in other countries are coming online or going offline, and the kids are playing Roblox and pretending to do their schoolwork. We here at Zebulon Solutions are making it up as we go along, like everyone else, but here’s what we’re mindful of in these times: 

  1. Use what you have on-hand. Remember Apollo 13? They had only a few days to (among other things) repair a faulty seal on the command module hatch, using materials from the nearby couch. When you get stuck on a problem, take another look at the resources available to you. Then look deeper: in the garage, or the craft box, or the kitchen, or the boxes piled in a corner of that makeshift office. Look again through your old contacts. Think about who else solved similar problems in a different area. Take a webinar on the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (“TRIZ”, here’s one). Then go be creative! 
  2. Use your tech. Of course, use video conferencing to stay connected to your colleagues and employees (tips here), to brainstorm ideas and share data. 
  3. Use your tech creatively too. The internet of things and cloud-submitted data is allowing us to continue testing for one of our customers during this shutdown. We set up a huge testbed in our lab with their sensors and a camera to record the testing. All uploaded to the cloud via an array of routers. The customer is never physically onsite, and they can analyze the data from their own home offices. And maybe we’ll find a use for the augmented guidance software that was used in Wuhan – major challenges can lead to long-lasting innovation and change. 
  4. Use your connections. Rely on your partnerships. You’ve built strong relationships with your business partners, through challenges and successes. Find ways that you can help each other during this time. Explore new collaborations and share opportunities. 
Test bed

We can work through this, but only if we go together. 

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Zebulon Solutions Acquires JSL Solutions

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:

Kirsten O’Donoghue
720-204-8177
kirsten@zebulonsolutions.com

www.zebulonsolutions.com

Zebulon Solutions Acquires JSL Solutions

Colorado-based hardware solutions companies expand their product development and operations services offerings

Longmont, Colorado, July 22, 2019—Zebulon Solutions of Longmont, Colorado announced today that it has completed the acquisition of JSL Solutions of Westminster, Colorado, an operations consulting company.

Jenney Loper, JSL Solutions’ founder, said, “One of the many reasons I chose to align with Zebulon Solutions is that they consider manufacturing throughout the entire product development process. They don’t just design a product and throw it over the wall, but continue to be involved until manufacturing is scaled.”

“We’re delighted to add JSL Solutions’ world-class operations consulting and supply chain expertise to our end-to-end product development offering,” said Chuck Hodges, CEO of Zebulon Solutions. “We’ve worked with Jenney on several projects over the past years. She has really figured out how to ‘take the hard out of hardware,’ and our mutual customers love her. With Jenney onboard, our ability to make products manufacturing-ready will be greatly enhanced.”

Matt Brzezinski, Head of Hardware at Misty Robotics, added, “Jenney brings a wealth of high-volume experience with her to the design reviews, always feeding back input to the design team to enable the most cost-effective design. She would be a tremendous asset for your company and has my highest recommendation.”

Jenney Loper is joining Zebulon Solutions as Director of Operations, focusing on building operational infrastructure for customers. With her experience working closely with startup businesses, Jenney will expand Zebulon Solutions’ fractional Chief Operations Officer (Fractional COO) service offerings.

For additional information, contact Kirsten O’Donoghue of Zebulon Solutions at 720-204-8177 or visit www.zebulonsolutions.com.

# # #

Zebulon Solutions is a global product design and supply chain services company, focused on getting products out of R&D and into stable manufacturing. Key services include product design and development, supply chain optimization, and operational consulting.

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Risk Vs. Reward with Rapid/Virtual Prototyping

You might think utilizing rapid or even virtual prototyping eliminates the need to build fully functional prototypes before heading into production. After all, building a fully-functional prototype takes time and often considerable money, depending on the complexity of the product. It seems once you’ve run all the simulations and worked out any bugs virtually, your product should or could be ready for production. While it may be tempting to follow that route, for more complex products there are elements and conditions that can truly never be predicted by simulations or virtual testing. But even products that are designed virtually and then produced as working prototypes can still run afoul without diligent product testing.

Producing real-life scenarios that expose the demands of a product outside of the lab and that are intended to expose any deficiencies or critical issues of the product as a whole, as well as all of its moving parts, is a critical step in designing a product for manufacturability. Ample testing on a physical prototype should help with the success of the product in the marketplace as well. 

Risk Versus Reward with Rapid/Virtual Prototyping

by Dr. Todd Hochwitz

When I started my career many (many) years ago, prototyping consisted of walking paper drawings down to the machinists for them to be turned into reality.  Sometimes I had results in days, but more often weeks. However, with the pressures on engineers to operate faster, cheaper, and more efficiently, rapid and even virtual prototyping has become common. Now with the push of a mouse or keyboard button I can have something in a matter of hours or days.  That reduction time is clearly an improvement, right?

Sometimes yes, but sometimes no.  While it’s nice to be able to see photo-rendered drawings on a monitor, being able to hold something in my hand and get a true feel of the product is better.  Having something physical makes the product seem more real, and allows engineers like me to understand nuances of how we’ll actually be able to assemble the item.

However, rapid/virtual prototyping is only one important part of the toolbox.  Why isn’t it the perfect fit for everything?  There are a few reasons:

  1. The biggest problem we encounter is that the rapid/virtual prototyping design was made around 3D printing and not actual tooling that is typically used for volume manufacturing. You can easily make a CAD model that can be 3D printed, but that doesn’t mean that a particular design can be molded or stamped or cast.
  2. Some characteristics of rapid prototyped materials are very different from machined or injection molded versions. While we’ve had great success using printed parts during the development phase, when it comes to some types of testing, they fall short.  They may leak, shear, shatter, or undergo different thermal/mechanical behavior than the final versions.
  3. Simulations are a wonderful tool to quickly invalidate obviously-flawed designs, but they are typically not sufficient to prove a design. The models used, and numerical methods employed, do not always reflect every aspect of the environment that the part will be exposed to.  And more importantly, they don’t reflect the unpredictable human element.

One famous such example is the Galaxy Note 7. It was developed in a virtual environment and put through the typical simulation process to expose deficiencies and critical flaws. A working prototype was designed yet, when the prototype of this smart phone went to manufacturing (and then onto the marketplace), it was quickly clear that a significant flaw had been missed in the phone’s battery power source. Clearly, it’s important to not only make sure the product, as a whole, actually works, but to also be sure that all the moving parts are suitable for real-world demands.  Not only was this missed flaw a significant safety hazard to anyone using the phone, but a branding disaster. It’s very difficult to undo the damage to the reputation of a product that is infamous for smoking, catching fire, or exploding.

While we do rely upon rapid/virtual prototyping as much as we are able, we always keep in mind the limits of those tools.  Using them allows us to quickly get close to a final design as long as we keep the real manufacturing process in mind, and understand the limitations of the models behind the simulations.  There are always tradeoffs to consider, corner cases to address, but at Zebulon Solutions, we pride ourselves on being open and transparent with our customers which sometimes means telling them what they need to hear versus what they want to hear. We help our customers work through these challenges to yield a manufacturing-ready product.

Check out all of our Product Design Services.

Zebulon Solutions: We Design, We Test, We Break Things.

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Zebulon Solutions is Ten Years old!

Zebulon Solutions Quarterly Review

 

A few words from the CEO

Ten years ago, a former contract manufacturing colleague of mine and I started Zebulon Solutions.  Our first digs were in an unairconditioned room with particle board flooring above a tiny coffee roaster in Berthoud, Colorado. After years of playing the global shell game of chasing ever-lower-cost resources around the planet with ever-more-complicated contracts and beat-up-the-vendor mentalities, we were ready to get back to an old-fashioned way of doing business. We choose the name Zebulon as a way to tap a little bit of that old-timey vibe, as well as pay subtle tribute to our Colorado roots (Zebulon Pike was an early nineteenth-century explorer and the namesake of Colorado’s iconic Pike’s Peak).

    Lots of things have changed since then. We have a real office and lab, with real air conditioning, and scores of satisfied customers around the planet. We’ve leveraged our global experience to find the best supply chain solutions for our customers, and we’ve added in world-class design capabilities. But at the end of the day, we still try to do business in an old-fashioned manner, where a handshake (or its Slack equivalent) means something.

  •    – Chuck

 

What We’ve Been Up To

Sponsoring  A Neeley Home at the Colorado Oil and Gas Association Chili Cook-Off.

        

Checking out all kinds of new products and technologies at the Start Up Grind Global Conference s in Redwood City.

Exhibiting at Rocky Mountain Venture Club’s Annual Angel Capital Summit

ZEBULON SHOUT OUT!

The Power of Poop

Fecal sludge as a fuel: characterization, cofire limits, and evaluation of quality improvement measures 

Lauren M. Hafford | Barbara J. Ward | Alan W. Weimer |Karl Linden

Our team here at Zebulon Solutions have worked on some unique and interesting projects other than just our projects here at Zebulon Solutions.  For example, Lauren Hafford, our Senior Mechanical Engineer, has been working with a team from CU (co-author BJ Ward, and Drs. Karl Linden and Al Weimer). They all worked tirelessly on the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge at CU Boulder driven by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. To learn more about the team click here.

Congratulations to Lauren and her team on being published!  The article about using fecal sludge as a fuel in coal-fired power plants was published in the Journal of Water, Science, and Technology. Here is an excerpt from the article or read the full article here.

“In many low-income cities, a high proportion of fecal sludge, the excreta, and blackwater collected from on-site sanitation systems such as pit latrines, is not safely managed. This constitutes a major danger to environmental and human health. The water, sanitation, and hygiene sector have recognized that valorization of treated fecal sludge could offset the upfront cost of treatment by using it as a fuel source. The few quantitative studies on fecal sludge fuel published to date have focused on heating value, moisture, ash fraction, and heavy metals. However, other factors impacting fuel utility, specifically ash speciation, have not been adequately quantified for fecal sludge. This study contributes to closing that gap and shows the value of more detailed quantification. It first characterizes fecal sludge samples from Colorado and Uganda, confirms that the fuel is better if cofired with other biomass, and outlines a framework for determining safe cofire ratios. Second, the study evaluates two methods for improving fecal sludge as a fuel: carbonization and ash leaching. Carbonization of fecal sludge did not improve fuel quality, but leaching showed promise in ash reduction”.

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INTERNET OF THINGS….IT’S HERE!

How IoT Impacts our Daily Life

When I was young, my family and I traveled around the southwestern United States. While we were in Arizona, we went to visit something called, “The House of the Future.” It was a showcase house filled with automated devices that were run by the house’s computer system. The tenant was in complete control, able to make important decisions about their living environment, which were then executed by the home’s microcomputer system.

Fast forward a few decades and that house is still there but seems more like a relic of the past yet, The House of the Future was on the cusp of a smart house age to come. Now that age has arrived. The Internet of Things (IoT) is here. I now work for a company, Zebulon Solutions, that works on all kinds of IoT devices, ranging from smart hockey pucks to 4000-pound smart transformers.

According to Business Insider, “The Internet of Things, commonly abbreviated as IoT, refers to the connection of devices (other than typical fare such as computers and smartphones) to the Internet.” So, what does that mean? It means that the internet has become “link-able” to things like watches, cars, and kitchen appliances. Really almost anything with an on/off switch can be connected through a network of integrated circuit boards, sensors, and satellites. This connectivity allows massive amounts of data to be generated, monitored and utilized in real time. The potential of such interconnectivity is amazing, overwhelming and, let’s admit it, a little worrisome. By 2020 it is predicted that there will be between 30-50 billion devices connected to IoT.

So what impact does IoT have on you? On us? As individuals and families, businesses and communities, as a country and society? And how will IoT affect our future?

The daily impact is already here. Just look around. Most people own or use a device or a variety of devices daily that are considered part of the Internet of Things. Smartphones, fitness trackers, GPS and locating devices, smart speakers, remote security and home automation devices, etc. The list is long and continues to grow and evolve.

According to Forbes, 84% of the growing IoT applications will be dominated by a few main industries: Smart Cities (26%), Industrial IoT (24%), Connected Health (20%), and Smart Homes (14%). What do these numbers mean?

While it simplifies matters to be able to identify the IoT devices (http://iotlist.co) and applications that directly affect us each day, the rapid growth of IoT is having an even more profound impact on industries and businesses, which in turn will again impact us all. The graph below outlines how some of those industries will fit into the most popular markets.

Source: internetofthingonlinestore.com

We will continue to delve into all these areas in upcoming blogs, but for now let’s start with some of what IoT provides to any industry, company, individual or group.

  1. Easy access remotely
  2. Enable process monitoring and management
  3. Accurate prediction
  4. Easy transfer of data

Wearables are a good category to start with when discussing basic and common uses for devices and apps included in IoT. Let’s take a smartwatch for example. The watch is capturing your biometric readings. This may alert you to a possible illness (accurate prediction) since you just spent the holidays with all your nieces, nephews and cousins. Smart speakers are another good example. You can talk to a smart speaker and give it tasks to do such as read a recipe, turn down the thermostat, or turn on music (enable process monitoring and management) as you prepare dinner. We’ll use home automation and security sensors for our last example. Both types of devices allow you to monitor what is going on at your home (Who’s at the front door? Is there a leak in the basement?) even if you aren’t home (easy transfer of data and easy access remotely).

While some major concerns pop up here, performance is key. That is where Zebulon Solutions comes in. It’s great to be able to see who’s at your front door while you’re at work, but the doorbell’s main function, the simple, ding- dong needs to work. Not only that, but what was once a simple passive circuit now needs a microprocessor, a secure wireless link to your Wi-Fi network or a cellular tower, motion sensors and a video camera. All able to function on a cold winter night in Breckenridge or a steamy summer day in Baton Rouge.  And it needs to be manufacturable, our real specialty. Let us help you develop your next IoT product and make it manufacturing-ready. To learn more, visit us at www.zebulonsolutions.com.

Stay tuned for upcoming blog posts where we will be discussing those concerns, along with how IoT will impact industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, and energy.

 Posted by Kirsten O’Donoghue

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How to Become an Overnight Success!

How to Become an Overnight Success!

Recently, our team at Zebulon Solutions attended Denver Startup Week. Our own Dr. Todd Hochwitz teamed up with other subject matter experts in engineering, business development, product fulfillment, and supply chain management to discuss the journey and address the challenges of developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and how to get that product into actual scale production. (The Long Road: From MVP to Production)

While the experts shared a few funny (and a few horror) stories about companies that tried to take shortcuts along the way, one thing was clear; there are no shortcuts.  Overnight success is a highly sought-after myth.

Of course, no one wants to hear this!

Demonstrated by the widespread use and success of tools such as Google Maps or Waze, we are a society that loves the express lane. We’re always trying to find a faster or easier way to do things. But…what about the overnight success?

The Overnight Success Myth.

We have all seen it. Someone who seems to come out of nowhere and becomes immediately and massively famous or a new product that seems to make leaps of innovation overnight and is wildly successful.  How does this happen? Is it having extraordinary luck? Is it being born extremely talented or with a genius intellect? Is it knowing the right people or attending the right school?

The truth is it could be all, some or none of these things. The real secret to what many would call “overnight” success is not only knowing that there is no such thing but also understanding that it is almost always a combination of hard work, creativity, having the right network and team in place along with being ready when good opportunities come knocking. Of course, a little luck doesn’t hurt either!

So? How do you get to that spot? I thought you’d never ask! And Denver Startup Week seemed like a perfect time to get some insight into just this.

Because Denver Startup Week was full of speakers and sessions and people with passion, I took the opportunity to pick up some tips on success.

So, what were the top takeaways and tips from these experts? And what advice should we take from those who have “been there and done that”? How do we avoid shortcuts, but still save time?

Identify the areas in which you lack knowledge.

Once you have identified areas that you don’t understand, don’t possess the skill set for, or just lack the necessary level of proficiency to be successful, you can move onto the next question. Where do I find help?

 

How do I find someone to help me?

 Networking is one of the most powerful tools at your disposal. I cannot emphasize enough how fundamental, yet crucial, this skill is when seeking out guidance and assistance. Some of the best people to ask for help are individuals who have been where you are right now, or where you will be soon.

And not just because they have “been there and done that”, but because they may save you precious and costly time in constructing an invaluable network of contacts. Especially here in the Denver market where our entrepreneurial ecosystem is small enough that the right help is often only one or two degrees of separation away, if not closer. Networking can be a mighty instrument in your arsenal when assembling the right team.

 

Assemble the right team.

Obviously, when you are assembling a team it is important to make sure you have the right players with the right skills, who play well together.  Many startup companies are constrained by limited resources, both human and capital, which can make putting together the best team a challenging undertaking. The most practical and cost-effective solution provided by our panel of experts was to make sure team members are all capable of wearing multiple hats.

 

According to Todd, building a multi-disciplined team that can function as a cohesive unit and provides end to end capabilities, allows entrepreneurs to effectively shift focus and resources as business needs evolve and grow.  While this team structure is ideal, it is often difficult to fully engage (and compensate) a team of this caliber when there are lags or delays in product development resulting in slower or stalled progress of the business.  For these reasons, it can be helpful to have the flexibility and on-demand expertise that Zebulon Solutions provides. We take great pride in our ability to expertly fulfill those types of fractional roles on ongoing or limited bases. To learn more visit our website at www.zebulonsolutions.com.

 

 

 

 

Written by:  Kirsten; With insights from Todd and Chuck

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New Logo

Designer Karl Lagerfeld once said “Logos and branding are so important. In a big part of the world, people cannot read French or English–but are great in remembering signs.” Sure, Karl Lagerfeld designs women’s handbags for a living, but the man is right. Mr. Lagerfeld is experienced and smart enough to understand the importance of a good logo in any industry. Languages may not always translate, but signs can “speak” volumes. Thus the reason why it was so important to give our logo a fresh, updated and well-designed spin.

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