This feedback was important for us to receive because it highlighted a key difference between how DMC is viewed from within and from outside the organization. When someone hears that DMC has offices across the country, it is reasonable to assume these are sales offices. Many companies start up this way: a central office where the technical work takes place, with satellite sales offices for relationship building and sales generation.

More Than Pins on a Map

As DMC expands to open and grow offices in new geographic regions, it isn’t because they want another dot on the map or a statement of presence in those locales. Rather, the intention is to establish engineering presence in the area – offices that provide a location to do actual engineering work to solve problems, develop systems, serve customers, and help deliver projects.

This distinction makes all the difference. Offices of DMC aren’t just a place where you meet someone and talk about business or make introductions. They are places of active technical development. In DMC regional offices, engineers are actively designing automation systems, writing software, setting up test equipment, creating manufacturing processes, integrating hardware, addressing customer needs, and more.

Chicago

Austin

Boston

Cincinnati

Dallas

Denver

Detroit

Houston

New York

Raleigh

San Diego

Seattle

St. Louis

Tampa

Washington, D.C.

Local Presence Still Matters

Even in an age where virtual collaboration is commonplace, there are times when physical presence cannot be overlooked. Seeing a piece of equipment, touring the manufacturing floor, observing the testing apparatus, reviewing the assembly of a control panel, or sitting down with a customer’s team to troubleshoot an issue may present challenges that cannot be fully understood from a diagram, specification, or teleconference call.

That is where the regional presence provided by DMC becomes useful. For many of our clients, our engineers are just a few hours away from their facilities. We can respond to their needs more quickly, build stronger personal connections, and provide the human touch that is so essential to creating a successful technical solution.

It is particularly important for projects involving actual machinery, equipment, limitations, and operating environments. Often, the most effective solution may not be reached from afar but will require the presence of someone with a direct and personal understanding of what the challenge entails.

That said, the regional nature of DMC’s operations does not preclude clients from choosing engineers from any office outside the nearest one. That is where DMC’s approach truly shines.

OneDMC: Local Connection, National Depth

DMC’s office locations are our engineering teams, but they are not necessarily isolated from one another. We have very much embraced the OneDMC approach, meaning that our regional presence is backed by the complete technical expertise of DMC on a national level.

While a customer might work directly with the engineering teams in a local office, there will always be many more layers of technical knowledge backing that local team. Whether a customer’s project requires test automation knowledge, control systems expertise, LabVIEW programming, embedded development, manufacturing automation, cloud, data systems, or even just complicated multi-disciplinary engineering, DMC can bring in the appropriate experts.

And that is what makes our office model quite different from a standard sales office location approach. It combines the benefits of proximity with access to all the knowledge necessary. Customers don’t need to settle for proximity or specialization; with us, they can have both.

That is one of the reasons why we chose to establish offices rather than just sales offices in certain locations. While other companies may only put sales representatives in convenient locations, our office approach allows us to build engineering teams to serve our clients locally while remaining part of a national organization capable of tackling any problems.

Telling the Story More Clearly

The feedback from our partner was a helpful reminder that how we tell our story matters. We know what DMC’s offices are because we live it every day, but we cannot assume others see it the same way. If someone hears “national footprint” and thinks “sales coverage,” then we have an opportunity to better explain what makes our footprint different.

DMC’s growth has been intentional. We have invested in engineering offices because we believe technical work benefits from both local relationships and national collaboration. We want to be close enough to our customers to show up when it matters, while still being connected enough internally to bring the right expertise to every challenge.

So when we say DMC has offices across the country, we are not just saying we have places to meet. We are saying we have engineers across the country. Engineers who are working on real projects, solving real problems, and building real relationships with customers every day.

That is the reality behind DMC’s national footprint—and it is a story worth telling more clearly.

The post DMC’s National Footprint: Engineering Teams Built Locally, Supporting Clients Nationwide appeared first on DMC, Inc..

Audit Approach

Everyone at DMC is involved in the certification process to ensure that the best practices become part of the company’s ‘DNA’. DMC follows CSIA’s recommended audit preparation, which is to approach an audit like you would run a project.

For each piece of audit criteria, DMC assigned a champion to evaluate it and ensure that it’s up-to-date. DMC’s best practices are stored in a shared document on SharePoint, so it’s easy for everyone to link from each piece of criteria to the relevant best practice. The checklist was organized three months in advance, so each employee had plenty of time to prepare their assignments.

Importance

The CSIA Certification recognizes DMC’s technical proficiency and sound business practices. We have invested our time and resources to become recertified every three years, and it is a worthwhile investment. The best practices we have implemented are important in becoming a better company. It is in the best interest of DMC to be certified and expand our knowledge to better serve our customers.

The certification is important to staying ahead in our industry. We strive to keep up with the latest technologies and invest into being an industry leader. CSIA-certified companies are also financially stronger than non-certified companies. There is a strong link between certification and business performance, and this link is important to DMC.

Score and Improvements

DMC has been CSIA certified since 2009. We improved our score from 306 in 2015 to 337 in 2018. We gained extra points in most areas including management, human resources, and marketing.

One of our reasons for success was due to the role of our Project Coordinators. Having Project Coordinators help run our projects has bridged gaps, project life cycle, and project management. The score we achieved is normally reserved for companies two or three times larger than DMC. DMC is very proud of our best practices and being a part of the CSIA for nearly a decade now.

Audit Preparation Tips

Establishing effective best practices is key to the success of systems integrators and the reason that we have earned and maintained our CSIA Certification. If you’re considering CSIA certification for your organization, check out our 10 Tips and Tricks for Using SharePoint to Prepare for the CSIA Audit presented by Rick Rietz at the 2018 CSIA Executive Conference. These tips help establish an effective best practices structure inside SharePoint that’s easy to maintain and more importantly, easy for employees to use.

Learn more about DMC’s partnerships.

The post DMC Passes 4th CSIA Recertification appeared first on DMC, Inc..

Thus, as part of DMC’s standard project process, there are many critical supporting services that DMC performs for our clients.

Here are five ways DMC ensures the success of projects: 

1. Design Reviews
2. Application Testing and Project Quality 
3. Build and Release Management
4. Project Communication
5. Project Management

This blog details each of these practices

Design Reviews

Design Reviews are standard practice for all DMC projects. Peers and senior engineers subject system designs and developed code to a constructive review. They serve as checkpoints and establish an active feedback cycle during project development.

Design Reviews:

• Improve quality
• Leverage experience of multiple team members
• Mitigate risk
• Allow early detection of system critical items 

Application Testing and Project Quality 

All custom application software requires testing. DMC integrates application testing throughout project development, from early-stage concept and simulation testing to onsite/field functional testing. 

Testing times naturally vary based on the use case and complexity of a system or application, but it is always reasonable to expect a significant amount of time be devoted to thoroughly exercising and verifying application functionality to ensure it satisfies system requirements. 

As part of DMC’s standard project process, at least one engineer is assigned to be the project quality lead, having responsibility for quality control measures throughout the project.

Build and Release Management

Standard software release processes involve the compilation and distribution of a binary (stand-alone) application, along with deployment to field systems (i.e., PCs, embedded controllers, or other targets).

Time spent on these activities varies with the scale of an application and its deployment scope. In all cases, the successful installation and configuration of application software on field systems is an important task during the end stages of a project. 

In addition to application builds that are released/deployed on field systems, DMC also typically provides full source code as a project deliverable.

Project Communication

DMC maintains open and active channels of communication with client personnel throughout our projects during all periods of ongoing engineering/development. We update clients on progress, schedule, and timing expectations, or identify any issues encountered. We also meet with key members of a client’s engineering and management teams to review technical information, hardware and software designs, project progress, budget status and schedule. 

Methods of communication:

• Status updates via email 
• Conference calls
• In-person meetings 

By regularly gathering appropriate project stakeholders, these meetings strive to promote effective communication, synchronization, and coordination between team members from both the client and DMC. They help ensure all development activities are progressing in line with the client’s expectations. 

Furthermore, these meetings provide an opportunity for DMC to obtain feedback and direction on the client’s preferred handling of various aspects of the project and to cooperate with client engineers on technical strategies and implementation approaches. The fundamental goal of these meetings is to enable the client and DMC to collaborate as a complete, cohesive team working together with a common purpose.

Additionally, DMC holds regular meetings amongst our internal engineering teams to ensure alignment and synchronization of technical strategies and deliverables.

Project Management

When DMC undertakes a particular scope of work on a project, we provide project management over that scope.

Project management includes:

• Coordination
• Top-level strategic direction
• Oversight
• Scheduling
• Tracking/reporting on team activities
• Monitoring progress, quality, schedule, and budgetary status

If desired, DMC also provides periodic project financial summaries (like the one shown below) for any Time and Expenses portions of the project.

Reports can be generated at significant project milestones/intervals to provide clear visibility into the budget as the project progresses. Data is based on invoiced costs and not-yet-invoiced pending costs (i.e. time spent by DMC engineers since the last invoice was issued) to provide an up to date snapshot of current budget status.

Conclusion

You can set yourself up for success before your project gets started by putting measures in place to prevent common and even uncommon barriers and problems from becoming a major breakdown in the project’s progress. If you have any questions about DMC’s project process, feel free to contact us. 

Icons made by Prosymbols, Vectors Market, DinosoftLabs, and Freepik from Flaticon are licensed by CC 3.0 BY.

The post 5 Ways DMC Engineers Ensure Project Success with Critical Support appeared first on DMC, Inc..

This article describes why developing a comprehensive Acceptance Test Plan (and then rigorously applying it) is important to overall project success.

Benefits of an Acceptance Test Plan

An Acceptance Test Plan provides many significant benefits to the project process.

Improves System Quality

Perhaps the most obvious benefit of an Acceptance Test Plan is that it provides a systematic, trackable, structured, and unified approach to performing system verification and validation.

Saves Calendar Time

Save time by parallelizing the work of fully defining test cases up front (as the Acceptance Test Plan is formulated), instead of doing this in-line (thus on critical project path) during actual commissioning activities. This minimizes total calendar time required for testing activities.

Reduces Engineering Time Spent on Testing

Writing a good Acceptance Test Plan takes time, but performing those tests takes even MORE time. Developing a complete Acceptance Test Plan in advance allows the full team to review and refine the plan prior to starting commissioning. This facilitates consensus agreement on what to test how it should be tested. This makes commissioning time more focused and productive.

The Plan Gets Utilized Twice for a Dual Benefit

The Acceptance Test Plan can be applied both during the upfront development level or “simulated” testing phases, and during final commissioning of the completed system. Thus, many of the benefits of an effective test plan get magnified. Although some aspects of the Acceptance Test plan won’t apply to the preliminary testing stage, there is still a significant ROI across the subsequent stages.

Guides and Supports System Development

Good test plans inherently flush out any ambiguities, gaps, or misunderstandings relating to system requirements. Applying these corrections sooner saves time and money.

Establishes Clearly Defined Milestones for Completion

Define successful completion of the project, or at least the current phase. A good Acceptance Test Plan avoids ambiguity or discrepancies on what it means for the system to be “working the way it needs to work.” Under the guidance of a good Acceptance Test Plan, all members of the team (both Client personnel and DMC) are striving towards a mutually understood goal.

Characteristics of a Good Acceptance Test Plan 

As a point of reference to everyone involved in the project, DMC suggests that a good Acceptance Test Plan should exhibit the following characteristics:

• Once it’s successfully executed, the Client is confident that the new system is properly doing its job, and that it will meet business needs.
• The Acceptance Test Plan should clearly define all test cases needed to accomplish the above goal. Each such case should:
  • Define the relevant input parameters and setup (both hardware and software) that need to be in place to start the test.
  • Define the process to execute that test case in clear, concrete, and actionable terms. This makes testing activities repeatable and self-documenting. Later, someone can look back and see a pass/fail result and exactly how it was created.
  • Define the expected results and/or pass-fail criteria for that test in clear, unambiguous, quantifiable terms. Tests should be broken down to a level where the answer to “Did it do what it was supposed to do” is a very clear YES or NO answer. 
    • Bad: The Configuration GUI screen operates as expected.
    • Good: When the “Save As” button is pressed, the operator is prompted with a “Browse” dialog, allowing them to select a file path and file name.  
    • Good: When “OK” is pressed on this Browse dialog, the program saves the parameter file in an INI format in the specified file path location with the specified file name. The parameter file shall contain all previously entered parameter values.

Return on Upfront Time Investment 

The following questions commonly arise when considering Acceptance Test Plan development:

Is it worth it to spend this time to define how the system needs to be tested, and exactly how each test will be conducted?  

Aren’t we smart enough to figure this out as we go along?

When developing complex, customized, and mission-critical systems, omitting rigorous system testing from the project process is NOT an option. Doing so may detract from the quality of the final system and risk unacceptable failures and issues.

It is true that defining the full process for each test case is no small task and will take some time. It’s critical to keep in mind that, to perform any commissioning tests, the work to define tests must still be completed at some point. 

We have two options for when to figure out these details:

• During acceptance testing – In this case, all work happens in-line with actual commissioning/testing activities. It is on the project critical path and adds time to overall project schedule.
• Before acceptance testing/commissioning – Include this information in a pre-defined Acceptance Test Plan. In this case, all time happens in PARALLEL to other critical path development activities, and IN ADVANCE OF actual commissioning activities. This effort is parallelized, off the critical path, and has limited impact on overall project schedule.

Another time-saving benefit is that, once documented in an Acceptance Test Plan, tests can be reliably repeated. If something fails once (which is going to happen many times in a complex system), having a good Acceptance Test Plan means that, after making corrective modifications to the system, any person will be able to conduct the same test in the same way it was originally done.  

Moreover, this can be done without needing to re-formulate the steps and without requiring that the exact same people conduct the test. An Acceptance Test Plan adds structure, documentation, and repeatability to the test process.

Who Should Write the Acceptance Test Plan? 

The generation of the Acceptance Test Plan should be a collaborative effort among all team members. Certain team members know specific aspects of the system better than others, and all members of the team are invested and share responsibility in making sure the system works properly and meets Client needs.

DMC suggests that the Client team is best suited to have primary responsibility for creating the Acceptance Test Plan.

Why is this the case?

The Acceptance Test Plan will be the primary way for the Client to exercise “quality assurance” over the new system and make sure it does the job it needs to do. When push comes to shove, “the job it needs to do” is a matter of the Client’s business needs. Thus, the definition of how to check if the system is doing its job (i.e., the Acceptance Test Plan) is most meaningful if it comes from the relevant stakeholders and end users on the Client’s team.

Additionally, having client stakeholders develop test cases creates a system of “checks and balances.” A supporting purpose of an Acceptance Test Plan is to verify that the developers correctly interpreted each requirement. For example, if DMC writes a test case about a particular requirement, it’s inherently based our interpretation of the requirement, which will naturally align with how we implemented that requirement. The system is likely to pass that test case, whether our requirement interpretation is accurate.

Therefore, it’s generally not best practice for developers to create the final test cases for their code. Test cases are often driven by those who are the “end users” of the given system. Having Client stakeholders develop test cases creates a system of “checks and balances” and enables the Client to act in an oversight capacity for system quality assurance.

Requirements Vs. Test Cases

A common view on test strategies is that testing should consist of going through the original requirements document and checking that each requirement is satisfied. This makes sense because a good Acceptance Test Plan should essentially be a set of test cases that provide 100% coverage of the system requirements. However, the requirements document is not an Acceptance Test Plan. There is a fundamental difference between a requirement (a statement of what a system shall be capable of) and a test case (a statement of conditions to establish, steps to follow, and criteria to evaluate to determine if a system is meeting a requirement). Yet there is a close correlation between requirements and test cases.

DMC recommends that one should reference the system requirements documentation while drafting the Acceptance Test Plan. We should be translating and expanding each requirement into a test case (or multiple test cases) that effectively checks whether the system is meeting that requirement. If we do this for each system requirement, we end up with a good Acceptance Test Plan that has 100% coverage of the requirements. 

The post Deciding If Your Project Needs an Acceptance Test Plan appeared first on DMC, Inc..

However, when DMC steps up to the mark to offer customers custom technical solutions in a timely manner with a smile, Phelps is the one taking second.

Here are five reasons why DMC glides past Michael Phelps when it comes to technical solutions.

1. Hiring Smart People

DMC boasts an incredible team of employees that come to work with fresh ideas every day. In fact, it's our #1 core value. DMC hires bright employees from top notch schools across the country, with an eagerness to learn. Employees at DMC can pick up new technologies faster than Michael Phelp’s 100 meter freestyle.

As a child, Michael Phelps was afraid of sticking his head under the water while swimming. That doesn’t sound like the quickest way to pick up 28 medals.

2. Sharing Information

DMC has a wealth of expertise when it comes to SCADA, LabVIEW, Web application development, IoT, and Microsoft consulting services, among other technologies. We are happy to share this knowledge and training with our clients to help them take ownership of their systems.

No client should be caught in the undertow of dealing with a platform they don’t fully understand. Do you think Michael Phelps would give up that secret to Olympic greatness? Us neither. 

3. Telling It Like It Is

DMC places a high priority on being honest and fair with our clients in every dealing and project. This approach fosters a strong rapport with our clients and we pride ourselves on maintaining these strong relationships.

Listen to any press conference of Michael Phelps after losing a race. He uses euphemisms, clichés, and dodged questions to avoid addressing the problem. You won’t get any of that from DMC.

4. Industries Served

DMC serves a broad range of industries. We have worked in industries spanning from Automotive to Telecommunications, and have excelled in each of these. DMC isn’t afraid to dip its toes into new waters and try its hand at different industries. 

Phelps just swims. That’s it. You won’t see him trying out competitive ping pong anytime soon (Oh, we’re really good at ping pong too).

5. Make Things Happen

DMC is committed to delivering quality work on a proper timeline. Our customer service policy that can be spotted around the office is, “If it is within reason, make it happen.” Employees at DMC take this to heart and strive to accomplish the goals of our customers.

The argument can be made that Michael Phelps made a few world records happen and made himself the greatest Olympian ever with a record that might not be broken for another 2,000 years. We’ll cut him some slack and call it a draw. 

Medal Ceremony

After tallying up the count, DMC takes the podium in four of the five categories with a nail biter tie in the final. DMC is the heat leader when it comes to technical solutions, and a great choice for your next project.

Learn more about DMC's customer service policy.

The post 5 Reasons DMC Laps Michael Phelps in Technical Solutions appeared first on DMC, Inc..

Awards

We kicked off NIWeek at Alliance Day on August 1, where DMC was honored to receive the Silver Outstanding Technical Resources award. This award is given to the NI Alliance Partner with the most Certified Architects and Developers who support NI customers in their integration and consulting projects.

Presentations

NIWeek hosted several great presentations, including a session on creating effective and aesthetic user interfaces in LabVIEW. This course introduced interesting new techniques, including moving a tab control’s coordinate position in order to simulate animations (like we see on our phone/tablet applications). Attendees also saw the latest trends in user interface design, including flat and semi-flat controls as well as grid and card designed UI layouts.

DMC led three presentations at NIWeek 2016. I spoke on managing LabVIEW Object Oriented hierarchies along with Jason and Jesse. Dan gave an IoT presentation with Jon and Darren on how DMC used LabVIEW to make a myRIO (NI controller) accessible on any device with an internet connection. Finally, Jeremy, Jesse, and Steven, led a session on how DMC synchronized data collection of five high speed NI devices using FPGAs and CAN.

NI Announcements

NI unveiled plans to completely revolutionize the LabVIEW programming language. Next Gen LabVIEW  will include WPF based UI development, 1 ADK interface (think Visual Studio), a modernized ADK skin, and interactive graphical debugging tools. NI has not announced an official release date, but it was exciting to see all the upcoming advancements including zoom in/zoom out on your LabVIEW block diagram!

In terms of hardware, NI is seeking opportunity in the RF industry. They released an improved version of an FPGA powered module that is wonderful for testing RF devices. The VST is an RF device that can be programmed to communicate with and test most RF devices. The 2.0 release features 5x bandwidth improvement (1 Gb).  

Looking at advancements in vision, NI  announced a new version of the Industrial Controller and a teaser of a new NI branded Industrial Camera. The Industrial Controller is a powerful NI branded industrial PC tailored for vision applications. The new release boasted more rugged specifications and improvements to processing power.

Among the dozens of buzz words thrown around (IoT, Cloud, Cyberphysical, Platform, Ecosystem) Big Analog Data takes the cake. Many attendees discussed how to navigate the seemingly endless data stored in applications with analog transducers. There was some high-level discussion regarding “The Edge” of data processing. The Edge represents the movement of data analytics away from the centralized server model to distributed smart devices.

Exciting Demos

After the sessions, DMC explored the expo floor for cool demos by other companies and NI using LabVIEW or other NI technologies.We played a fun game that some NI interns put together: hit targets projected on a screen with a nerf gun. There were vibration sensors at the four corners of the screen that the targets were projected on. Using a cDAQ, the vibration sensors recorded the time it sensed the vibration. From the time difference computed between each sensor, the program was able to triangulate (or quad-adulate) the position of the bullet hit. It then determined if you hit a target or not.

We also had the opportunity to check out the first version of LabVIEW and to hit the ping pong table!

After Hours

NIWeek was a great opportunity to hang out with DMC employees from all our offices. We ate barbecue together plenty of times throughout the week and also visited Austin’s exciting 6th street where we played shuffleboard and caught up with some colleagues at NI.

Thanks for another great NIWeek!

Learn more about DMC’s partnership with National Instruments. 

The post NIWeek 2016 Highlights appeared first on DMC, Inc..

Enrollment is open to anyone on the National Instruments website. 

October 24, 2016
1 – 5 p.m.
2222 N. Elston Ave, Ste. 200
Chicago, IL 60614

Learn more about DMC's partnership with National Instruments. 

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For those who are true engineers/developers at heart, the ability to bring something new and useful into the world provides its own reward and sense of fulfilment that can make all the effort involved seem worthwhile.

But no matter how enjoyable DMC’s projects are to work on, the fundamental fact remains that DMC must charge for these projects to support company operations and to provide for employee growth and long term sustainability for our clients and vendors.

So how does DMC operate when it comes to defining budgets, managing the scope of work, and billing for projects?

DMC projects customarily follow one of two engagement models: Time & Expenses or Fixed Bid. Some multi-phase projects may involve a combination of the two approaches.

There are many factors to consider when deciding which option is best suited for a given project. The table below compares the two engagement models side by side to show how they might affect important aspects of the DMC project process. Every project is different, but these are some of the things we take into consideration when helping customers choose an approach that’s best for their needs.

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We were happy to learn that a project we were part of has been nominated for a corporate competition for best quality improvement project. The Caterpillar team received recognition for this in December.

The recognition of our friends is great to hear about. Moreover, it’s a good time to reflect on why we do what we do. Quality runs deep at DMC, and we believe our success is ultimately defined by our customers’ success. There are examples of this every day, all around us — behind the case studies we publish are our customers, their goals, and their successes.

This Caterpillar team was tasked with improving quality on fuel injector test lines. DMC worked closely with the team to deliver a software platform for test system management and analysis. The team saw a massive reduction in data errors, as well as improvements to security, ease of use, and expandability.

Congratulations to our friends from Caterpillar. We look forward to many more successes with all of our customers!

Learn more about working with DMC.

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At DMC we know that the customer is the most important part of our business. Without our clients, in fact, we wouldn’t even be a business! So, we compiled a box of some of our favorite wintertime go-tos: gourmet hot cocoa, a soy candle, DMC hats, scarves, and bottle openers among other cozy items. This cheerful package was just a small gesture to let our clients know how much we appreciate their business. 

Requests to have these gift boxes sent out started trickling, then flooding, in starting Fall of 2013. By the end of winter (winter is supposed to be over now, right?) we had shipped a whopping 571 winter gift boxes to our awesome clients and partners! And, since our clients love to have fun as much as we do, they sent us pictures of their DMC winter gear keeping them warm through all their winter activities – including some impressive mountain climbing! 

We hope these winter gift packages brought our clients a little warmth this winter. We look forward to continually improving our customer service and client experience in all the seasons to come – freezing or not!

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