Casey Business Awards
Casey Business Awards 2011
Successful Endeavours are the current holders of Casey Business of the Year and we have been selected as Finalists in the Casey Business Awards 2011. We continue to find the City of Casey to be a very business friendly environment and these awards are just one example of many things they do to encourage and support local businesses.
The finalists were announced by City of Casey Mayor Shar Balmes.
Shar Balmes Mayor of Casey
The guest speaker was Futurist Paul Higgins, a consultant with Emergent Futures. He spoke about the changing role of the Internet and Social Media in how people make buying decisions and perceive value, and challenged us to think about how our businesses would address this challenge, both in defending against competitors and developing new business opportunities because of it. I was very impressed and have signed up for a trial of the scanning service offered by Emergent Futures where they bring together information on a particular area of interest and produce a consise and easily followed view of what this means. We are an ideas company and I can’t see how we won’t come up with at least 10 times the asking price of $49.94 a year in new ideas from this material.
Paul Higgins aka Futurist Paul
Manufacturer Of The Year
We were also finalists in this category last year and some of you might be wondering how a business that focuses on Electronics Design and Embedded Software Development for Australian Electronics Manufacturers can also be a candidate for Manufacturer Of The Year?
The answer is straight forward. Having completed the design of a new electronics product, some of our clients get us to also manage the production logistics for them and either deliver programmed, tested and calibrated PCB sets to them; partially assembled product or fully assembled product. I though an example would help here.
We will call this one Client X. For Client X we do the following:
- source all the components including electronics components, case, labels, batteries and machined and LASER cut items
- get the PCBs loaded (we can handle small quantities in house but once you get over 30 PCB sets it becomes cheaper to use a dedicated SMT line)
- program, test and calibrate the loaded PCBs
- fit labels to the front chassis and then fit all the connectors, indicators and switches
- fit the battery to the case
- assembly the unit including the seals (this is an IP65 rated product)
- apply serial numbers
- final assembly and test then pack in shipping cartons with labels and matching serial numbers
- ship to client who then sells them direct to their customers
In the case of Client X it wasn’t worth setting up an internal production line to handle a Niche Electronics product made in quantities of less than 500 per annum. Whereas we can handle this very cost effectively. We have a few strategies we use to radically reduce the cost of product test and calibration but I’ll save that for another post.
We will find out on 27 October 2011 at the Casey Business Awards Gala Dinner how we go in 2011. But for me, we are already winners.
Thanks again to both our suppliers and clients for providing us with great components and for giving us the amazing challenges and opportunites to create new electronics products. For one example of this, check out the 2011 Electronics News Future Award for Industrial Electronics we received for developing a Capacitor Bank Controller for ABB.
ABB CQ900R Smart Controller
We are also pleased to have support from AMTIL and ManufactureLink.
