VOLANSYS (An ACL Digital Company)

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the VP of engineering for ecoation, an agriculture technology company based in Vancouver, Canada. We primarily provide services to greenhouses to increase their efficiency and productivity in growing their products. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with VOLANSYS (An ACL Digital Company)?

We had a new generation hardware and software project and engaged VOLANSYS for engineering services to assist us in building out the product and delivering it to market.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

VOLANSYS provided software, hardware, and electrical engineers to help us with our project. First, we started the software side, where they helped add features to our mobile app and web app. The mobile app is for iOS and Android, and the web app works for all web browsers. 

As for the hardware project, they helped us build a physical hardware device that included a computer, a camera, and sensors. They designed the printed circuit boards (PCBs) that ran inside the device; their work was an evolution of an existing design. From there, they acted as lead hardware engineers on the PCBs’ production. VOLANSYS delivered the testing and certification of the PCBs. They also manufactured different runs of the PCBs and validated their proper manufacturing.

What is the team composition?

We worked with three engineers on the software side. On the hardware side, we worked with two engineers. We also had a bit of a flux in the team composition when we engaged 1–2 additional hardware engineers for one month. 

How did you come to work with VOLANSYS (An ACL Digital Company)?

They reached out to us via email, and then I found them on Google in 2019 when I was surveying some vendors that could help us. VOLANSYS had a salesperson in North America at the time who was traveling. He came to our office, and we had a really good time; he presented their company and background. However, we didn’t engage them immediately because our project was timelined further out. 

When we launched the project, I contacted them again, and we came to an agreement. We chose them because they had everything we were looking for.

How much have you invested with them?

We spent around $300,000 CAD (approximately $229,000 USD). 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2021. The hardware side ended in February 2022, and the software part ended in June 2022.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

VOLANSYS’ results are embedded into our business. Our hardware project has passed certification. On the software side, we’ve successfully released the new versions of the apps the team worked on, and our customers are using them. 

How did VOLANSYS (An ACL Digital Company) perform from a project management standpoint?

Their project management was awesome. They provided lots of documentation and were very proactive in their communication. As for tools, we used Jira for project management and Microsoft Project for Gantt charts. We communicated via Zoom, email, and custom Slack channels. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

I was impressed with VOLANSYS’ hardware expertise, especially in the device and IoT areas. Their breadth of services was also outstanding, ranging from hardware to software to DevOps to PCB manufacturing. They were very quick to engage, provide qualified engineers, and start working. Additionally, their great pricing differentiates them from other providers. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

I can’t think of anything they needed to improve. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

They seem to be different than others in that they have a hardware angle, so if your project involves that, VOLANSYS is a great choice.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Aperia Technologies develops technology which improves the operating efficiency of Commercial Truck Fleets. Our flagship product is the Halo Tire-Inflator, which fully automates the maintenance of tire pressure in order to improve tire life and fuel economy.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire VOLANSYS Technologies?

Volansys provided support in developing IoT technology for Aperia.

What were your goals for this project?

To help speed up the development of elements of our IoT technology portfolio.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Volansys reached out to Aperia, and after careful review Aperia felt that Volansys could help Aperia meet our aggressive technology and business objectives.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

Unfortunately, this is confidential.

What was the team composition?

Confidential.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Volansys has met their objectives, and did in fact help Aperia to speed up the development of key IoT technology elements.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

Volansys provided one part-time project manager and one part-time delivery manager to the project. The project and delivery managers were skillful.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Very technically capable, and fast moving.

Are there any areas for improvement?

Volansys could improve on how they go about understanding the goals of the end user, and also wrt transparency around potential risks and tradeoffs.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

VP Engineering

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire VOLANSYS Technologies?

VOLANSYS is a trusted technology partner, who helped us in launch a significant product update. They provided firmware development services including Wi-Fi driver development on SafeRTOS, platform & LWIP stack integration, control & data path bring-up, and debugging.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to launch an update to our wireless charging system for automobiles. It required implementing a set of new embedded controllers, RTOS, communication stack and protocol. To achieve this, we engaged VOLANSYS , and they provided valuable services enabling us to achieve our goal with tightly followed timeline.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We evaluated a few vendors. We were looking for companies which has firmware expertise on multiple chipsets, technologies and can work within an Agile development system. The technical proposal submitted by VOLANSYS was comprehensive and included details on the approach, scope, risks & mitigation strategies, schedule and milestones.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

VOLANSYS helped us implement the next generation sysem. We used them for Wi-Fi driver development on SafeRTOS and APIs for an application layer interface. They implemented SDIO protocol 3.0 and bring-up of Wi-Fi SoC along with Wi-Fi control and data path. Further, they integrated an LWIP stack with Wi-Fi driver, security WPA2-PSK, Dynamic Frequency Selection algorithm and QoS. VOLANSYS executed performance and congestion testing ensuring there is no compromise in quality and connectivity.

What was the team composition?

The team was a mix of ~8 people (tech lead, embedded engineers, quality assurance engineer) headed by a project manager. The overall team had expertise across several platforms, protocols, tools and technologies.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

VOLANSYS did a very good job both in terms of delivering functionality that was promised as well as meeting schedule and quality requirements.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

In the initial weeks, we had multiple calls to freeze requirements and define the scope of work. As we progressed, we started having weekly discussion with the Project Manager and bi-weekly discussions to get updates on the progress, issues and ensuring the deliverables were being met.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

VOLANSYS understands the value of time-to-market and was committed in helping us achieve the goals we had set for our product. I was very happy to see them adopt technologies & processes that met our project needs. They executed the project well, showed a great team commitment, were prompt with any support we needed, and overall delivered a high level of quality.

Are there any areas for improvement?

From the start of the project, we have been working in collaboration with VOLANSYS to enhance operations and business engagements. Although, there are no major areas where we had challenges, though we believe dependencies could be handled seamlessly with timely action.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I am the founder of a technology company focusing on high-performance wireless networking for IoT and enterprise applications. With substantial patented and patent-pending intellectual property, we bring value to industrial original equipment manufacturers (OEM) requiring IoT device integration into larger enterprise networks. We also support government agencies with security, monitoring, performance, and surveillance needs for IoT devices. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire VOLANSYS Technologies?

VOLANSYS is our preferred system integration partner. We hired them for framework development, testing, and continuous integration and development, as well as maintenance of our legacy Wifi mesh product. They also provide IoT support.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was to develop an open source-based, extensible framework on top of a legacy product in order to support IoT application. We also wanted to develop software for simplifying the OEM flashing and licensing process during end-node production. 

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

We had been working with another vendor with whom we were not satisfied. We began looking for companies with specific Wifi mesh networking expertise and an agile approach to project execution. They submitted an impressive technical proposal. VOLANSYS proved to be a comprehensive service partner for all of our needs. 

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

We first established a preliminary model of time and material to address the steep learning curve of this long-term engagement. Experienced in mesh networking, VOLANSYS clearly understood the challenges that OEMs, enterprises, and government agencies face while integrating large numbers of sensors, actuators, appliances, and other machines at the network edge. They quickly grasped the proprietary algorithm of our legacy product and immediately began maintenance and bug repair services.

In addition, they built an extensible real-time publish and subscribe framework to support IoT class application. This framework provides application APIs to send or receive data and subscribe to and publish multiple events.

They also developed an open-source-based robot framework for testing mesh networks and nodes and improved the flashing and licensing process with a Python to OpenWrt in-node that used licensing information in EEPROM.

What was the team composition?

A project manager led a team of six several firmware developers and quality assurance engineers. They also drew upon a pool of resources ranging from embedded system engineering, Java development, and firmware development to quality assurance and digital networking (both wired and wireless) experts on several platforms, protocols, tools, and technologies.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

VOLANSYS’ timely deliverables of software development and testing expedited our product time-to-market, which, in turn, helped our customer retention. 

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

We initially conducted daily setup calls with a small team to explain the requirements and scope of work. Later, in advance of our weekly review calls, a project manager from VOLANSYS began sending us status reports that included the current progress, an upcoming plan, and a list of risk items, issues, and dependencies with a corresponding mitigation plan. 

What did you find most impressive about this company?

Not only did VOLANSYS understand our project requirements exceptionally well without reaching out to our previous vendor, but they have taken the initiative to develop their own solutions to outstanding issues. Furthermore, during a visit to their facilities in India, I found their engineers to be dedicated and passionate about their work. 

Are there any areas for improvement?

I don’t see any areas for improvement at this stage. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m a project lead for a semiconductor company. When my department was developing a software-defined switch, I also worked as a developer along with my team.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with VOLANSYS?

As a small team when we started, we needed many more engineers to enable us to take our product to market within our set timeline. We needed more support to implement numerous features within the software of the switch. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We outsourced the entire job to VOLANSYS. Working as a contractor for us, they provided both development expertise and QA testing assistance. Since then, we’ve expanded their involvement to other areas like networking and driver development.

VOLANSYS made the designs for drivers and testing use cases based on the initial concepts and architectures for the networking area we provided. Since we lack resources in that area, we relied on their expertise. As we progressed, they’ve brainstormed new ideas for the designs on their own.

Testing amounted to half of the work. The other half of their responsibilities were frontend and backend development. The backend is comprised of device drivers, which facilitate low-level communication with the hardware.

What is the team composition? 

We started with a team of six people from VOLANSYS which grew to 25–30 over time. 

How did you come to work with VOLANSYS?

We considered 4–5 companies from different regions. VOLANSYS had complementary expertise to ours: they were experts in drivers, while we were experts in networking. The project leads we interviewed performed well during the initial phase. They understood our concepts and requests.

How much have you invested with them?

The total cost was over $1 million.

What is the status of this engagement?

We worked with VOLANSYS between April 2013–June 2018.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

VOLANSYS split their team into small groups, each with a leader. During our weekly meetings, we discussed the project reports each team lead sent us that demonstrated the impact of their work.

During our general meetings, we looked over the performance metrics for all the tasks and features. Every part of the workflow has gone well. VOLANSYS also proposed new ideas for what we should do.

How did VOLANSYS perform from a project management standpoint?

We tracked both weekly and monthly metrics. I managed the entire 20–person team. It wasn’t an easy task, but I never felt I had to monitor them continuously. The project managers and leads were supportive. Based on the milestones we wanted to achieve, they managed the rest by themselves.

Most of our daily communication was through email. We also held weekly and monthly phone calls. The project leads from VOLANSYS also traveled to our location for 2–3–week periods to discuss more in-depth concepts.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Every person on VOLANSYS’s team is hardworking. At least half of the engineers impressed me with their intelligence. They figured out our needs with relatively little input from us. I could see that they followed best practices for engineering 

Are there any areas they could improve?

We would have preferred for one or two project leads from VOLANSYS to have worked at our location constantly, rather than just at the start of new projects. Having fulltime on-site resources would have improved and eliminated gaps in communication, sped up the pace of work, and fostered closer rapport. As the point of contact, I sometimes felt like I was spending too much time responding to emails.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the product development manager at AGI. I am responsible for new product innovations and bringing ideas into reality. AGI owns around 20 companies, one of which is Westeel, which makes grain manufacturing and storage equipment for commercial and farm industries.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with VOLANSYS Technologies?

We needed a grain monitoring system which measures the temperature and moisture inside grain bins. The technology exists but isn’t that advanced. We wanted an app developer who could create an IoT platform and effectively handle the development process. They also offered many different skill sets in-house, including manufacturing and integration.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

They developed the platform, which is IoT-based and uses sensors, cloud computing, and LoRaWAN network connectivity—which is a mass networking protocol—along with Bluetooth. It’s a very complex system. We had a remote systems device which sends out Bluetooth signals. The finished iOS application needed to use that as a base to configure the device and mass network as well.

We also gave them a small project in which they produced and manufactured electronics based on our requirements. They also helped us to develop a small electronics board as test equipment to finalize and test electronics. This helped us ensure the product was rightly matched with its specifications and functionality.

What is the team composition?

We worked with two developers, a tech lead, and a project manager. I was mostly in contact with the project manager and with the technical team when they had questions about the requirements.

How did you come to work with VOLANSYS Technologies?

They were recommended to us and we reached out to them.

How much have you invested in them?

We spent around $50,000.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in January 2017. The initial engagement concluded in January 2019, and we’re still working with them on the manufacturing part.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Their quick understanding of our product requirements proved critical. We were struggling to finish our iOS product and they played a critical role in development thanks to their attitude and expertise. We met our deadline for release.

How did VOLANSYS Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?

We used Jira as a communication tool and an agile methodology. Initially, we had calls on a weekly basis, but we found that a one-hour meeting was more than enough for us. They also sent out a weekly report showing us how much work they had completed, and the work that they expected to begin the following week.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Their in-house knowledge of all technologies, including the large manufacturing software, proved crucial. I found other vendors were experts in a particular domain, but they weren’t able to help us in other areas. VOLANSYS Technologies helped us during a critical time where we wanted to make sure we had a reliable design house and manufacturing facility at the same time as a critical targeted cost.

Are there any areas they could improve?

They could improve their understanding of the project requirements and converting requirements to the correct specification before starting the project. It would improve development speed rather than going back and forth to get requirement specifications again.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was a design center engineering manager for a company that delivers design, engineering, manufacturing, and logistics services. I led product and software development teams that designed medical devices and digital health solutions.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire VOLANSYS Technologies?

We needed someone to provide hardware, embedded software, and cloud and mobile applications for our team.

What were your goals for this project?

Our goal was always to leverage the right technologies and development processes to deliver scalability and ease-of-use, reduce operational cost, and accelerate time-to-market for our end-clients. Time was a challenge for many of our projects, seeing as development was already underway and we needed to increase our development power to finish faster.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor?

Initially, we considered 6–7 companies from different countries, looking for one that could work in an agile manner with end-to-end expertise regarding firmware and cloud and mobile application development. VOLANSYS offered comprehensive expertise, from prototype design to connected application development and automated product testing and validation. Given that this would be long-term, time and materials engagement, we compared hourly rates. VOLANSYS was one of the most affordable options.

Describe the project and the services they provided in detail.

VOLANSYS helped us develop digital health solutions concentrated on remote patient monitoring, drug adherence, and interconnected point of care/diagnostics devices. Some of the projects included anti-smoking devices and dosage infusion-pump firmware engineering. They also contributed to consumer appliance efforts.

They were required to use a variety of technologies depending on each project’s specific deliverables. For mobile apps, they used Angular 5 for the frontend, Node.JS for the backend, and Python and JMeter for testing. For cloud-based networks of mobile apps, they used AWS and Microsoft Azure. They were also responsible for designing and developing micro-service architectures and third-party app integrations. Some of the projects also necessitated bare-metal programming.

What was the team composition?

Each project team had a different composition, but overall, we worked with embedded software developers, cloud architects, full-stack software developers, mobile application developers, frontend developers, QA engineers, and DevOps specialists. Everyone was very supportive and worked together to meet deadlines and expectations.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Our biggest achievement was decreasing development costs and accelerating time to market. VOLANSYS was critical to us producing our agile development deliverables every week. Their open and honest feedback improved our products' quality and UX.

How was project management arranged and how effective was it?

They worked on Scrum-based projects, so we had daily stand-ups and regular meetings. We used Jira for task-breaking and Confluence for collaboration. Teams were assigned based on skill sets, and everyone was proactive in demonstrating their relevant knowledge.

We were provided with regular reports, and several VOLANSYS experts even visited our office to resolve time-critical issues. Most bugs were fixed before products even went to market. After five years, we got to know each other’s expertise very well and worked together as a single team.

What did you find most impressive about this company?

We were impressed with their ability to learn and adopt new technologies and processes. They developed understandings of our project/use-case needs and collaborated to deliver quality service.

Are there any areas for improvement?

As partners, we continually worked to improve inter-team operations, but there weren’t any standout weaknesses.