2015 New Year's Resolutions
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| Lynn Reed |
The New Year is here, and that means I get to make the New Year's Resolutions for everyone else in the company. Here they are.
Engineering
1. Get the programmable 68HC705 and 68HC711 parts into production.
The acceptance of these parts has been limited by our lack of our support for customer programming capability. And our use of flash instead of EPROM for programmable memories has meant that we need programmers with flash-compatible programming algorithms. We have been working on part programmers for several years now. This is the year to finish that project for all of our programmable parts.
2. Release high temperature standard products.
So far, all of our really high temperature SOI products have been ASICs. This year we will expand our offering by bringing out multiple standard products.
3. Improve our product engineering support for products.
When Tekmos was smaller, each engineer served as the design engineer, test engineer, and application engineer for their products. Now that we are larger, it is more efficient to specialize. So we will create and staff a product and test engineering department to address this.
Manufacturing
4. Convert our test hardware to a common channel assignment.
We doubled our test capacity in 2014 through the addition of two new testers. But the new test hardware differs slightly from the older testers. To address this, we will define and implement a standard intermediate interface that will allow any part to be tested on any tester.
5. Bring up probe.
We are expanding our in-house test capacity, with particular emphasis on higher temperatures. Since many high temperature applications are sold as die, we resolve to introduce a high temperature wafer probe capability in -house.
6. Start the workflow automation of our manufacturing.
We have well over a hundred active products, and many of them have custom requirements. And as a result of growing, we need to switch to a company wide software package for ERP. Our resolution is to start on a workflow automation system for our company. Because of the complexity, I expect that it will take over a year to fully implement this system.
Quality and Administration
7. Start on our AS-9100 certification.
We achieved our environmental ISO14001 certification in 2014. The AS-9100 is much tougher, and will require substantial changes to our design workflow. This will be a difficult task, and I expect that it will take about two years to accomplish. I also think that it will improve our design operations, and make us a better company.
8. Move into new facilities.
Tekmos has been at our current location for about 11 years. And with our growth over the last two years, we have outgrown our space. We have to find more space, build it out to meet out needs, and occupy it.
Sales and Marketing
9. Exceed 2014 in sales.
2014 was our best year ever. Now it is up to sales to top it in 2015.
10. Define the next new area for us.
Four years ago, we chose to pursue the 68XX series of microcontrollers. We have now created most of the family members, and have occupied that niche market. About two years ago, we stared to address the high temperature market, and we are making a good deal of progress there. But it is the job of marketing to determine what is next. And we need to decide that in 2015.
Check back in December and see how well we did with our resolutions.
