HiTech Service LLC

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Real Time Medical is a company created by clinicians, for clinicians. It was formed by three Canadian radiologists: Dr. Greg Butler, Dr. David Koff, and Dr. Nadine Koff, later joined by a former GE PACS executive, Mr. Ian Maynard.

Their vision was to grow and operate a nationwide radiology service network for Canadian radiologists.

The service network was launched in late 2008 by RTM’s CEO Ian Maynard, P.Eng., M.Sc., MBA. AICloudWorks™ and AICloudQA™ are Real Time Medical’s patented software platform. It applies and implements our thinking around context-awareness in workflow management.

AICloudWorks™ and AICloudQA™ provides enterprise productivity and peer review with advanced critical results management. The software is seamlessly vendor-neutral, easily scalable and works across multiple medical disciplines.

I’m VP of Product Development and Implementation leading the development of new products for our company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire HiTech Service LLC?

We required unique development skills able to integrate legacy native components into our java based application framework.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal of this project was to add fully integrated ActiveX components to our Electron/ Node.js application. Specifically, adding voice dictation functionality and thick client viewer integration.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We reviewed a number of development companies with experience working on medical application projects but end up selecting Hitech as we had worked with them in the past and were very satisfied with the results of our development partnership. Knowledge of our company and products made outsourcing to Hitech an obvious choice.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

The scope of work required the integration ActiveX components to Real Time Medical Electron/ Node.js application using custom native Node.js modules.

Hitech was able to develop code with the ability to launch, control and communicate with the following 3rd Party vendor application products:

1. Nuance PowerScribe 360 - voice recognition/full reporting support
2. Dragon Medical Dictation - voice recognition
3. Intelerad InteleViewer - DICOM images viewer

What was the team composition?

Hitech had assigned one senior developer to this project and directly interface with our Real Time Medical development team.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

These development components make one of our core application feature, voice recognition, for medical radiology possible. Our new application products could not "go live" without implementing this project.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We leveraged our project management team and worked with Hitech's developer as an extension of our own development team. We followed our typical weekly sprint code review process and found working with them very effective and seamless.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Hitech was most impressive with how quickly the understood our unique medical application needs and ability to leveraged their medical experience to get up to speed in a very short period of time.

Hitech flexibility and availability made integration with our development team easy even with a 7 hour time zone difference. there was little to no impact on communication during the whole project.

Are there any areas for improvement?

There is no areas for improvement at this time. I feel further projects will be even easier to start and manage with Hitech's approach to fully integrate development resources with our team.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the CEO of an IoT development firm.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with HiTech Service LLC?

One of our household appliances needed coding so we could connect it to the Internet. We also wanted the device to connect to a tablet or mobile phone via Bluetooth. The device is controlled by the mobile app.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

HiTech Service LLC is an ISO 9001 certified company. They perform all the coding and documentation for the device. All coding is done from scratch according to the EMC-62304 lifecycle standard with Python and JavaScript. This is an ISO norm that is required for certain devices. The devices require documentation: usability files, risk management files, code review files. Most of the project was done remotely.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two people from HiTech Service LLC.

How did you come to work with HiTech Service LLC?

They were recommended to me. I discovered they were qualified to provide the documentation and we got in touch via Skype.

How much have you invested with them?

The project cost between $25,000–$50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in December 2018 and is still ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The service they provide is bug-free and perfectly tested. Because they are an ISO 9001 certified company, they have their own quality management system. The system is very detailed and has certain steps, which is not always convenient, but it ensures quality.

How did HiTech Service LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

I’m very satisfied with the project management. They have people that are good at understanding customers’ needs and taking the right messages to coders. They’re available most of the time, even at night or on weekends. HiTech Service LLC always adhere to deadlines.

What did you find most impressive about them?

When abnormal or difficult situations arise, they react flexibly. They deliver solutions that are qualified to complete the project.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, there’s nothing I can think of right now.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Make everything clear and that you really know what you want. I would recommending really knowing how your products work and what they should look like.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

3W Infra B.V. is a pure-play infrastructure-as-a-service provider that builds highly customized hosting and network infrastructures. Our solutions are engineered for scalability and cost-efficiency, with dedicated servers, colocation, IP transit, and high-level support.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire HiTech Service LLC?

We needed to improve our network infrastructure and public services.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

A partner recommended HiTech Service LLC, saying that they always provided the best solutions.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

They implemented speed test and looking glass features as separate web pages on our domain. They also developed a DNS web admin tool and DNS infrastructure for reverse and forward zone hosting. They delivered quickly since we expected to use open source third-party solutions customized to our services.

What was the team composition?

We mainly worked with the team lead and the development operations lead, but they used additional resources for research.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

They completed all the tasks. Their team handled research, offered us free tools, and gave detailed explanations for why they chose each one. They found a bug in one of the tools and reported all the details to its developers. The developers fixed the bug and integrated the tool on our website. 

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

It was effective. I explained our needs, and they did everything else without asking extra questions. We only touched base to confirm the milestones.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They paid attention to the details. We didn't expect so much background work for our simple project. The team did their research, designed tests, and accomplished every task without dropping behind schedule or expanding the budget.

Are there any areas where they can improve?

I can't come up with anything.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm the founder of an alternative payment processing network.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire HiTech Services LLC?

We were looking to augment our core team with on-demand resources to take on operational and development tasks including DevOps, QA, app development, and support.

What were your goals for this project?

The goal was to create a ready-for-market platform. The project’s scope includes numerous operational and integration tasks.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We compared HiTech to several other outsourcing firms we’d worked with in the past, and HiTech's strengths made them a great fit for this project.

Can you go into detail about the services they provided and the scope of the project?

HiTech’s scope has been complex and multifaceted. They developed payment applications for Verifone and Ingenico, planned software architecture and other DevOps, provided QA and first/second level support on multiple products, and took on a variety of smaller temporary projects. QA and support is largely ongoing.

What was the team composition?

We work with two senior development engineers, one senior QA engineer, three senior support engineers, and an on-demand DevOps team with a lead.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any information that demonstrates the impact that this project has had on your business?

HiTech was instrumental in helping us get our products to market. Their assistance allowed our core team to stay focused on the core development track.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Our core team managed the project, which wasn’t always easy for the HiTech team. However, they’ve been accommodating and work flexibly to meet our needs.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

They’re one of the only outsourced development companies we’ve worked with that successfully follows through on everything they initially promised. They also have a surprising number of senior developers and engineers.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the SVP of software engineering at a software company of 1,000+ people. We specialize in transportation logistics, offering service management to chemical and manufacturing companies, as well as a free, online platform.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with HiTech Service?

We were looking for talented, cost-effective, reliable offshore resources to help build a new, online, transportation logistics management software (TMS). The platform had to be built from scratch, so we needed to work on its architecture and design. When creating any enterprise, internet-based web application, you need to create the UI and the backend, and you need to make sure that it scales, is flexible, and is user-friendly.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

HiTech provides full-stack development, manual QA, QA automation, production support, and configuration management. They built the platform in Java, using a lot of open-source components. It’s pretty scalable and flexible, and the backend is based on service-oriented architecture principles. We’re also using the Spring Framework and Bootstrap for client-server communication.

We tried to make the UI very simple and intuitive, but the underlying logic is complex, so it was a big challenge. To counter this, HiTech brought in talented people for discussions and brainstorming sessions. This particular platform uses a Google Web Toolkit for the UI, which uses the same Java as the rest of the platform. If we need to scale it, we can simply add additional boxes, given how the system is structured.

What is the team composition?

They have assigned a team of 30+ people, roughly, including developers, project managers, QA testers, QA automation, and production support. We’ve talked to project managers, team leads, software development managers, and also to some lead developers.

How much have you invested with them?

We spend around $1.5 million per year on their services.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since 2015, and there’s always new development to be done.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

The platform is live, and available for free. We don’t have any major issues. HiTech’s decisions—especially their design and architecture ones—have worked well for us. This is not the first platform that we’re creating in production. We have many years of experience doing such things. It’s working well, and it’s using limited resources so far. Our contracted uptime is 98.5% of the time, but HiTech keeps our customers up 99.99% of the time. They keep them online at a much better rate than we are actually contracted

There are a lot of statistics that we gather regularly, and they look good so far. We have “executive dashboards” that we create every month, which go to our leadership. Within these statistics, we define how many users are signing up per month—which is a lot—how they’re using the software, and what they’re using.

How did HiTech Service perform from a project management standpoint?

I work directly with HiTech daily and plan projects with the lead engineer weekly. They're available 24/7 and have excellent project management skills. We are using Jira actively for project management. Everything goes through it, from lifecycles to statuses, and so on. We’re also using Perforce, which is integrated with Jira, as a source control system and document management tool. When we create a work item, we’ll know which files have changed, related to it. We have a continuous deployment process. There is very close, good communication. We’re using Skype, similarly to almost everyone else working remotely.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The value is top notch. You get more than what you pay for. They want to make their customers happy and that comes across in the caliber of their work. The most important thing for us—especially for me, as the head of the team—is that they’re reliable. They provide talented, highly-qualified people, and it’s a pleasure to work with them. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

There is room for improvement in verbal communication given that they are not native English speakers. The communication could improve, but it's still has been very good as they have a lot of excellent English speakers. 

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Have open communication and don't make things rigid. If you keep the process flexible, they'll complete tasks quickly and do excellent work.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the director of business operations at BLUE Software, a brand packaging software company. We design the software that organizations use to promote their products.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with HiTech Solution LLC?

We needed a partner to manage our hosted services for our customers.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

HiTech manages all the hosting for our app called Brand Manager. It runs on Java, and the backend is Oracle. They do deployments, upgrades, manage the security and network, and everything else related to hosting the product.

We used to use their QA and development resources, but that stopped once we were acquired. We’ve scaled back to only include hosting services and support services. We moved data centers twice, and each time HiTech seamlessly set up the customers, did new installs, and managed the migrations without any hiccups.

What is the team composition?

We have a project IT engineer who manages his team according to the current projects. I interact with most of the team members during the day.

How did you come to work with HiTech Solution LLC?

One of our R&D managers worked with HiTech at a different organization, so he brought them on.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve invested over $5 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since December 2012.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our contracted uptime is 98.5% of the time, but HiTech keeps our customers up 99.99% of the time. They keep them online at a much better rate than what we’re actually contracted.

How did HiTech Solution LLC perform from a project management standpoint?

I work directly with HiTech daily and plan projects with the lead engineer weekly. They’re available 24/7 and have excellent project management skills. They’re resourceful and have been able to find the solution to any problem we’ve faced so far.

We used to use Skype for communication, but now we use Slack, email, and Jira for tracking tasks.

What did you find most impressive about them?

They charge a lower rate than other agencies, and the value is top notch. You get much more than what you pay for. Their services are triple the quality of other firms. They want to make their customers happy, and that comes across in the caliber of their work. If there’s something you’re not happy with, they’ll replace the process or resource immediately.

Are there any areas they could improve?

The language barrier can sometimes be a problem. They have lots of people who speak English well, so it’s not usually too big of a hassle. The communication could improve, but it’s still been good.

Do you have any advice for future clients of theirs?

Have open communication and don't make things rigid. If you keep the process flexible, they’ll complete tasks quickly and do excellent work.