Digica

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the COO / VP Client Success of ORtelligence, Inc.

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Medical Device equipment logistics and surgical workflow optimization.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Digica to accomplish?

• Update our computer vision platform to recognize new surgical trays
• Optimize and automate our surgical tray onboarding process
• Restart our AWS environment and update all the software components

SOLUTION

How did you find Digica?

• Referral
• Repeat customer.

Why did you select Digica over others?

• Good value for cost
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Digica were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Restarting our AWS environment after we had an orderly shutdown over a year ago, updating our environment with current versions of software, reenabling our mobile iOS app to work with the AWS environment, and adding in new surgical trays to our computer vision application.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

AWS environment was restarted.  Software running on AWS was updated/upgraded.  Additional surgical trays were added to our computer vision library.  Our tray onboarding process was studied and plans to optimize it were put in place.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Project management was solid.  Bi-Weekly meetings were conducted, minutes were taken.  Also had communications via email and slack channel.

What was your primary form of communication with Digica?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

We had done previous work together, they understand our unique business.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Digica could have done differently?

This specific engagement was short with very specific (and tight) timeframes and deliverables.  I don't have any recommendations for doing things differently.

UPDATED REVIEW

This review was published on March 15, 2021.

Timothy Donnelly

Founder & CEO, ORtelligence

Healthcare

Glen Mills, Pennsylvania

1-10

Jul 2020 - Ongoing

Project summary
Digica provides AI software development for a medical device company. Their goal is to identify issues concerning the management of surgical equipment and instruments, to create an efficient work environment.

Feedback summary
Although there was a bit of a language barrier at first, the two parties still continue to work harmoniously and productively. The team is able to provide consistent updates on a regular basis. The internal stakeholders are particularly impressed with the team's agility to deliver ideal results.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of a surgical process optimization software company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Digica?

We were trying to solve the issues around instrument and implant management within hospitals and surgery centers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We’re working with Digica to develop a proprietary image recognition technology for surgical instruments, equipment, and implants.

They are able to deliver on a very complex set of instruments that are laid out for a large number of surgical procedures. Utilizing common technology such as iPhones or Android phones, they are able to build a software that will enable everyday employees and workers within a hospital system, to snap pictures of surgical trays, and identify what’s there and what’s missing. 

This technology will greatly increase our ability to get surgery right. It creates a better work environment for the people,  and the guesswork will be removed thanks to what Digica is building.

What is the team composition?

We’re working with about 6 people on this project. It’s a broad spectrum of data engineers, developers, graphic artists, and a project manager — a full team essentially.

How did you come to work with Digica?

It was actually our CTO who found and connected with them through The World Economic Forum. Our CTO sits on the forum’s council for AI, so I believe they connected that way.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2020, and we’re still continuing to work with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Everything was based on average precision scores and chaos models, where we determine the accuracy in real-time against a tray with a human in the loop interaction.

And in terms of anecdotal feedback, they’re just really a tremendous organization to work with. I had concerns in the beginning that there might be language barriers, but everything has been really seamless — it’s been a great experience.

How did Digica perform from a project management standpoint?

We have a shared communication platform that we work on together. We have bi-weekly progress reports and they constantly update us on their progress. Moreover, they’re really good at documenting the testing throughout the project. As they go, they leave us with the confidence that the algorithms continue to gain as they move through different projects.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We are impressed with their speed.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Nothing comes to mind at the moment. I don’t have anything to declare.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clearly define your goals and objectives, and give them targets to shoot for. They’re a task-driven team that works hard to achieve their goals in a timely, if not early, manner. They reached our desire threshold a month earlier than expected.

Star Ratings
Overall rating: 5

Quality: 5

Cost: 5

Schedule: 5

Willing to refer: 5

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Risk and Intelligence Analyst of a security solutions company

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Our company provides security, fire safety and risk management solutions to a large number of clients across Europe. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Digica to accomplish?

• Create a bespoke website
• Continued assistance with the management of that website
• Suggest further developments to enhance the user experience

SOLUTION

How did you find Digica?

Referral

Why did you select Digica over others?

• High ratings
• Great culture fit
• Referred to me

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Our client needed a secure website that was only accessible to those approved. The website is to host a multitude of documents and have the below capabilities:

• User management area
• Hosting documents / images / information
• Ability to submit CCTV / documents via the website
• Easy to naviagate for the user
• Easy to make amendments to information / images / documents hosted on the website

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Website visits
• User memberships
• Quick and efficient responses to queries
• Further development time scales

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Soren has always responded to mine (and the client's) queries quickly and efficiently. If we have been presented with a new use case / problem, Soren has always been very quick to suggest further developments to assist.

What was your primary form of communication with Digica?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I have only worked with Soren at Digica, and his attention to detail is impeccable. The Client and I have often presented Soren with a problem or a new use case that we wanted to explore and he has responded in a timely manner, suggested further developments to assist, then implemented those developments in a very short time. Soren also made the time to explain the backend of the website so that I am able to make slight amendments quickly and whenever needed.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Digica could have done differently?

I'm unable to think of any.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the finance director at a fresh produce company for the retail market.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Digica?

We needed help developing a bespoke end-to-end operational piece of software.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Digica has designed and developed a bespoke end-to-end operational software system from scratch. We’ve provided them with workflows and information to support the build and discovery process. Currently, they also offer maintenance services.

What is the team composition?

We’ve been in contact with around five members of Digica’s team, including developers, designers, and project managers.

How did you come to work with Digica?

Another similar business had used Digica and recommended them to us. We also did a Google search and spoke to a number of developers before we chose Digica.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent over £200,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in December 2023, and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We’re still doing the project, so we don’t have any metrics to share. There are always going to be bugs in these types of projects, but they haven’t been significant. Digica has addressed all the bugs promptly and solved them for us.

How did Digica perform from a project management standpoint?

We’ve encountered some challenges regarding deadlines because we didn’t appreciate the size of the project. However, since we’ve figured out what was needed, Digica has worked really fast. We’ve had frequent Zoom calls, and during the active part of the project, we’ve had 2–3 calls a week and a weekly commercial update. We’re now in the testing and implementation cycle, and we’ve asked if we could do daily short bursts of review and testing with them to speed up the process. Overall, their communication is frequent and flexible.

What did you find most impressive about them?

We like that Digica treats the project as a relationship, which is how we like to work. They’ve invested in us, and we’ve invested in them. It’s a real partnership rather than just giving them a brief and disappearing. We also like that they’re very flexible. Every teammate has done a really good job based on the skills they bring to the table.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Scoping a project is very difficult, particularly when it’s quite complex. If anything, the scoping for every aspect of the project could have been better initially.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Ask them to manage your expectations in terms of the uncertainties in a project like this.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Operations Manager of Just Helping

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Just Helping is a UK charity founded in 2012 with a mission to inspire and support people, businesses, charities, and other community organisations to contribute and volunteer in their local communities.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Digica to accomplish?

• Upgrade our ucommerce platform
• Maintain our digital platform

SOLUTION

How did you find Digica?

Referral

Why did you select Digica over others?

• Pricing fit our budget
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Digica were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Digica builds and maintains an eCommerce charity site for Just Helping. Uniquely the site is only fully operational for 2 months of the year when it processes a high volume of orders for a major national fundraising event. During this 8 week period it processes in excess of 65,000 orders and raises in excess of £1.2 million per year for charities nationwide. 
In addition to being an eCommerce site creating orders and collecting donations, the site also manages the data of donations and processes route planning for the event. A mobile app integrates into the system allowing access to selected data and routes created. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

A robust platform which delivered on all measurables including registration ease, processing speed, data management, seamless WebApp. This lead to an increase in donations and users of the platform. 

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

PM was professional, operationally well managed the project, project was delivered on time. Out of hours support and dev work also available. Responses and actions were swift and within the agreed timeframe. 

What was your primary form of communication with Digica?

• In-Person Meeting
• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

The company has a great culture, the team members we worked with had a genuine interest in our charity and project and were passionate in wanting to help up to deliver our charity objectives. We're really happy to have Digica support us through developing, delivering, and supporting our IT needs as a charity. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something Digica could have done differently?

No, for our project and work, Digica have delivered, we are in our 4th year of working with them. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I work in business development for Teledyne Technologies, specifically on the technical side, investigating new technologies and technical direction for our products. My branch makes high-end, high-performance machine vision inspection systems and cameras.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Digica?

We were evaluating a novel processor and wanted to develop some test algorithms to define its programming model. The ultimate goal was to build fundamental image-processing functions, such as simple image mass or image rotation, to execute them on the novel processor.

For example, people taking photos with their cell phones can rotate the image with two fingers; it’s a natural function for consumers. However, these are high-performance operations in the machine vision industry, so they have to be fast and precise.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Digica helped us write the programming language and then translate it to write fundamental image-handling functions from scratch. The project was a three-partner collaboration; first, the processor manufacturer provided the documentation on how to program the processor. We provided the requirements and algorithm support, and Digica handled the execution and project management.

They developed three image-processing functions based on C++. The team programmed them as an API, allowing users to access the end system to use the image-handling functions.

What is the team composition?

We worked with four team members: a business development manager, two developers, and someone from management.

How did you come to work with Digica?

We probably found them through a referral. They’d worked with other groups and companies, so their name was floating around.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from March–October 2022. We finished this project, but we expect to keep working with them.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

They answered the question we asked and helped us mitigate the project's risks. Thanks to them, we’ve proceeded to the next phase.

How did Digica perform from a project management standpoint?

Their execution, project management, communication skills, pricing, and timing were excellent. We communicated via Microsoft Teams and Zoom.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were extremely helpful. Digica took the project into their hands, reported back to us, and worked closely with our own product management team. We didn’t have to translate any information; they integrated well with our methodology, making our collaboration seamless. Overall, we hadn’t seen companies with such outstanding project management, communication, and responsiveness.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don’t have any improvements to suggest. Things would've been faster if they’d been experts in the matter, but it was a learning experience for all of us. Nonetheless, we were satisfied with their services; they were open-minded, resourceful, and accommodating. The team was happy to work with us, and they executed the project with real drive and passion.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

My advice is to go for it. If your project falls in their realm of experience, they’re one of the strongest partners for software development.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm an executive at a software company. I'm responsible for creating machine and deep learning models to improve the system.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Digica?

They offered to improve one of our models; I had an existing learning model to collect data, and I wanted a product that could beat the number of false alarms, false positives, and false negatives in our system. Secondly, we wanted to learn how to run a data science project and how they get their deep learning.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Digica helped us create the code to do some experiments and gave us tech consulting through their expertise.

How did you come to work with Digica?

They reached out to us, offering their services.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent around €75,000 (approximately $74,000 USD) with them.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from January–March 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We found out in the end that the model they created didn't score better than what we previously had.

How did Digica perform from a project management standpoint?

They reached the deadlines they promised. Regarding communication, we had weekly meetings with both teams, Slack, email, and three stand-up sessions every week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They were quick to understand the data. Moreover, they had to quickly switch the deep learning library they used and were up to speed with that task.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The code they gave us wasn't easy to understand — I thought its level would be higher. In addition, it seemed like they didn't perform some deep learning tricks that generally give better results because they knew a lot about all kinds of deep learning architectures, but they didn't do the basic tricks to get the best results.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They're great if you don't have something in place yet because they're very good at creating a deep-learning model.

Company Responses

The service provider responded on January 4, 2023.

Digica designed, trained and thoroughly evaluated a model that was by far smaller and performed better than the customer’s solution on the available data. Unfortunately, Digica didn’t participate in the productization of the solution and could not further refine the solution. 

We believe that Digica has made every effort to satisfy the customer with the PoC and that we would be able to help further with the project execution phase.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I'm a product engineering manager for Teledyne DALSA. We design and manufacture detectors for the medical X-ray market. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Digica?

We needed help with custom software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Digica did IT and cloud consulting services for us remotely. The concept of this project was a specific failure mode that we encountered with our large area detectors. We explained the requirements to Digica and provided them with the data to help them develop the software.

After that, we asked them to develop software to identify the numerical data and images within the software to detect the failure mode, and they showed us that they could do it with good precision for failure mode detection.

What is the team composition?

We worked with three members of their team.

How did you come to work with Digica?

A colleague had met Digica and was interested in their track record regarding intelligence software; preventative maintenance is very interesting to us as a company, so we had asked them to work on this project together.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent $25,000–$50,000 with them on this project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked together from December 2021–March 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

We worked according to the project plan, which Digica nicely monitored. They came with a proposal for the project planning, and they ensured we met all of that planning. We assessed the software, checking its accuracy in predicting the failure mode correctly and, of course, seeing what the software made false predictions. Overall, they were able to achieve everything with good numbers.

How did Digica perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management was great; we had weekly meetings via Teams. Also, according to the project planning, they monitored all the activities successfully — they took clear ownership of the process and ensured to make everything quickly.

We also scheduled an extra meeting to sort things out if there were any issues, and it all went well. We met the final milestone with good accuracy, and it was delivered on time.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their ability to lead and manage all the processes was outstanding.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I don't think there's anything they can improve on — I have to say that the outcome was good, the conversations were good, and, as mentioned, the project planning went well.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

If someone is looking for a company to support them with intelligence software, I would recommend Digica.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a radar algorithms developer working for company that develop radar products for the surveillance market.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Digica, and what were your goals?

We needed to prototype a new kind of classifier to remove unwanted detections in the radar.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

I was put in touch with Digica through someone at my company who thought they would be interesting for me considering that they have radar experience. We then held a meeting where they presented their previous radar projects and that gave us confidence to continue with a prototype project.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

This was a data science project. The goal was to develop a machine learning-based classifier that would be lightweight enough to run on an IoT-device. We supplied the data and Digica developed and evaluated a number of classifiers. The result was delivered to us in the form of a code repository with scripts for training and evaluating the proposed solutions.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

All in all, 4 data scientists.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

We saved substantial time in prototyping, and have selected one of the proposed solutions for further development productification.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

We used Google meet for week-to-week video meetings, and slack for the day-to-day discussions.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They knew what they were doing, worked independently without us having to manage them. They also acted in an agile fashion when we gave feedback during the project.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Not really.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CTO and co-founder of a radar system supplier. We design and supply radar systems for border security, perimeter security, and critical asset protection.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Digica?

We needed their expertise in custom software development.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Digica developed our data processing application from scratch. We specifically needed a military-grade AI product that was compatible with Windows 10 and Linux. The app was embedded into our system so that we could streamline our data identification efforts based on our targets of interest.

What is the team composition?

We worked with one project manager and one developer.

How did you come to work with Digica?

One of Digica’s managers reached out to me through a cold call. I was convinced that they could deliver the results I needed, so I gave their services a try.

How much have you invested with them?

The total project cost was £30,000 (approximately $42,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement with Digica ran from April–June 2021.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

Digica met all the KPIs we set at the beginning of our engagement. They delivered an efficient platform that allowed us to accurately classify and identify our individual target types, which was our main success metric for their work.

How did Digica perform from a project management standpoint?

We mainly communicated via Microsoft Teams. Digica was particularly on top of their project management game — they followed thorough yet technical processes, which allowed them to meet every deadline we set. Additionally, they were a cooperative team that took our feedback and data into ample consideration.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Digica was a knowledgeable team with accessible services. They were a professional partner that respected our methods and ideas throughout the project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

I’m not much of a technical person, but I was told that the coding could use some improvement. There were some inconsistencies identified in Digica’s coding methods that prolonged our implementation phase. Refining their code work would lead to a more functional and seamless platform.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Have a detailed description of everything you want to achieve and make sure to communicate your standards to their team as well. Defining both of these would help Digica to deliver more tailored solutions for you.