Category Archives: Critical Link News

More and more often we are hearing from customers that the responsiveness and support provided by our engineering team is head and shoulders above most others in the industry. To be honest, we never really understood what the big deal was. There are a lot of good engineering teams out there who take pride in their work and customer relationships. And while I always thought we were in the ranks of one of those, lately I’m starting to think there may be more to it.

Part of what’s got my attention is that our engineering support site has recently passed the 1000 registered users mark. This wasn’t a milestone we ever anticipated reaching when we first launched the site a few years ago. And the trend isn’t slowing down. In the time it took me to get this post together, the 1000 user mark is already in our rearview mirror.

Now, 1000 users may not seem like a big number to some companies, but most of what is available on our site does not require registration, so it’s a significantly smaller subset of folks who sign up. Without a username and password, engineers can review forum posts for previously asked questions and access product documentation on wikis, including support for build flow, software, FPGA/VHDL, and hardware design. Sample projects for our MitySOM and MityDSP products are also made available without registration.

So why would anyone need to register at all? Two main reasons: (1) to interact with our engineers directly by posting on the forums, and (2) to access additional product documentation, like baseboard schematics and SOM pin maps.

Another important thing we’ve learned? There are quite a few companies who attach strings to their engineering support. In some cases people are only allowed access once they have made a purchase, and then their support is limited to 1 year post-purchase. We believe it’s important for companies to get a sense of who they’re working with before they buy, and luckily for us, looking at recent trends, it seems like our customers agree!

Some of you (and some of us) may be taking road trip vacations with the family this summer, but Critical Link is hitting the road, starting in mid-August. Our travels will be taking us across the country, and even across the pond.

We have a fantastic lineup on our calendar:

RTECC(short for Real-Time & Embedded Computing Conference):We’ll be exhibiting at a couple of RTECC conferences:

• Orange County, California (August 19)
• San Diego, California (August 21)

And if you don’t think there’s any such thing as a free lunch, think again! RTECC events have no registration fee, and lunch is free. The Orange County conference will be held at the Richard Nixon Library & Museum in Yorba Linda, which folks of a certain age, and history buffs, might get a kick out of. The San Diego event will be at the more prosaic Crowne Plaza Hotel in Mission Valley.

There are several other RTECCs we may be participating in through the rest of the year. We’ll keep you posted.

ARM TechCon, which is going to be held in Santa Clara (at the Convention Center), October 1-3, is a show that we’ll be attending, but not exhibiting at. This is a pretty big event, and is aimed at helping hardware engineers and software developers work together to optimize their future ARM-based embedded products.

No rest for the weary I guess, so back on the East Coast the next week:

TI Tech Days (now TI Tech Summits) are something that we have very much enjoyed participating in. They offer a great opportunity to see TI’s latest embedded processors, and to check out what vendors like Critical Link are doing with them. The exhibits (and that all important lunch) are free.

So far, we know we’ll be exhibiting at these locations: (No info yet on specific venues.)

• Anaheim, California (October 14)
• Santa Barbara, California (October 15)

We may be adding others as well.

Come November, we’ll be brushing up on our German.

Vision Expo: We’ll be exhibiting at this event, “the world’s leading machine vision trade fair”, which will be held in Stuttgart, November 4-6, at the Messe Stuttgart. (In case you’re wondering, “messe” is German for “fair.”) Last time he was in Germany, Tom managed to sneak in a tour of the BMW Factory.

Arrow Centralized Training (also known as ACT) will be held in Denver, Colorado, from November 17 – 21, and Critical Link will be exhibiting and training Field Application Engineers on our SOMs and Imaging products. We participated in each of the last 2 ACTs, and can’t wait to see what Arrow has up its sleeve to top the tremendous value received from each of those events.

That’s what’s on the Critical Link calendar, for the rest of the year.

If you’re planning on attending any of these events, we’d love to have you stop by and say hello. If you’d like to schedule a time to meet (especially at ARM TechCon, where we’ll be attending but not exhibiting), please drop us a line and we’ll set something up.

 

It’s official.

In late June, we received the official certificate that lets the world know that we’re ISO 9001:2008 certified.

What does this all mean?

First off, the International  Organization for Standards, a.k.a., ISO (even though that’s not the acronym for the organization in English, German, or French…):

…is the world’s largest developer of voluntary International Standards.

International Standards make things work. They give world-class specifications for products, services and good practice, to ensure quality, safety and efficiency. And because they are developed through global consensus, they help to break down barriers to international trade. (Source: ISO)

The standards that we chose to adopt are those set down in ISO 9001:2008, which establishes the criteria for an organization’s quality management system. To follow ISO 9001:2008 standards, you need to put into practice eight principles (shown below with our short hand definitions):

• Customer focus (all about meeting your customers’ needs – and exceeding their expectations)
• Leadership (i.e., the organization’s  leaders set and communicate clear objectives)
• Involvement of people (employees at all levels are involved in making the organization succeed)
• Process approach (a systematic – and measurable – way to get things done)
• System approach to management (making sure that systems are in place, and integrated)
• Continual improvement (always looking for ways to better the organization)
• Factual approach to decision making (making sure that your information is correct, and acting on it)
• Mutually beneficial supplier relationships (working with the bes t- and making sure the relationships are built to last)

Critical Link has always been a quality-focused organization, but we decided to formalize our approach, and adopt the ISO standards, for a number of reasons.

One, we really do believe in continual improvement, and adhering to the ISO standards makes us more improvement-conscious.

Two, these are international standards, and, as our customer base becomes more global, and our customers’ products more international, we felt that adopting an internationally established and recognized approach to quality was important.

Our quality focus,  is, of course, the most important driver here. The applications that our customers bring to market perform essential and complex tasks, and must be built to last. They take care of extremely critical, often life-and-death, functions in industrial settings like transportation, defense, medical, security, scientific, and manufacturing. They’re not throwaway apps that get tossed when the next best thing comes along.

Another thing that appealed to us is the focus on process, systems, and fact-based decision-making. I don’t know how other professions approach these things, but for engineers, it’s heaven!

It’s not enough to just follow the rules and declare yourself certified.

You need to get an objective, third party organization to conduct an audit and assert that you are, in fact, following the ISO standards.

For our certification, we chose SRI to conduct the audit.

So, as of late June, it’s official: Critical Link is ISO 9001:2008 certified, one of the few SOM manufacturers who have earned this achievement.

To say that I am immensely proud of the Critical Link team would be an understatement.