What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?
It’s been a great relationship because we’re both doing what we do best. We send the final product as a complete solution.
The 3-D imaging project couldn’t be done without them because we don’t have that kind of in-house expertise. We’ve received praise on innovating a custom solution. Makeen Technologies is vital in making everything work together.
They’re making the field engineers’ jobs much more efficient because they’re able to pull up these images on the field rather than having to go back to wired computers. It saves a lot of time and money. We’ve received our first contract with a company that’s going to put it in a refinery. They said our development was really good and that we came up with a solution that meets their needs. It turned out to be something that’s going to pay off in the long run.
How did Makeen Technologies perform from a project management standpoint?
The communication is great. They have some really good project managers who are very technical and concentrated on the tasks at hand. It makes a lot of difference. Being able to understand the technology and how it’s installed are big advantages because you can clearly see that they’re efficient with their time. I really appreciate them having very technical project managers because it helps lower the cost of the total project.
Makeen Technologies' project managers follow the lead of our project managers. They use their own tools, but we’re not using their reports. We communicate via email, phone calls, meetings, and conference calls. We have standing meets that happen every week for big projects. Communication is very important.
Their development team is pretty sharp and cost-effective, which allows us all to make money. Working with them has been great because they have really good pricing and developers. They don’t scrimp us, even though they charge less. You get really good talent with the price they charge.
Are there any areas they could improve?
No. Our whole company works with them and we have more projects coming down the pipeline. I’ve never received any complaints or had communication issues.
Do you have any advice for potential customers?
Building a relationship with Makeen Technologies will help you be more creative. A lot of times when we sub, we sub for technology and don’t really get the full breadth of everything a vendor does. My advice to people who use Makeen Technologies would be to give them a chance to explore all the things they do. It could work with other divisions or projects you have within your company.
We’ve been learning as we go. If they’re involved in a meeting and we talk about certain technologies that are outside of our scope, that’s when we quickly learn that they have engineers or experience around certain things. It’s easy to use them for different projects you may have.
Makeen Technologies took the time to understand the business’ platform in order to provide engineers with the required skill sets. The team has strong project and people management skills, which has enabled faster development. They are thoughtful in their staffing and quick to address any issues.