June 22, 2016

For 10 years we’ve surveyed our customers asking what they look for when choosing a test lab. We’ve also asked how Elite meets its expectations and for input on ways to improve our services.
The feedback we get reveals that the majority of Elite clients look for technical expertise first followed second by quick lab access and prompt test completion. In addition, they tell us to deliver this higher standard of service at competitive prices. Simply stated, Elite clients, want a trusted service partner who can provide the absolute best value and benefit to their organization.
When we send a client survey or discuss our services with customers, we look closely at survey results, client suggestions, and customer input and then uses this information to align our business direction and decisions with their most important needs.
For example, to keep scheduling lead times low we recently added two new EMC engineers, Justin Ibarra (EE) and Ricardo Parrales (CET). This brings our full-time EMC test staff to a high mark of 26 engineers and technicians. Having the largest single-site EMC test staff along with multiple sets of test equipment and chambers gives Elite tremendous flexibility in test scheduling. Our resources can be shifted and optimized so we can be more agile than other labs and respond dynamically to customer requests for priority start dates.
We’re also very fortunate to have a great mix of new and seasoned EMC test engineers. Each is passionate about their work as well as professional and customer-focused. Our test software is developed by two EMC engineers dedicated to creating the test automation that makes us more and more efficient. We have eight senior EMC engineers including team leaders and managers. They provide an invaluable depth of knowledge and mentoring role with the goal of helping our growing staff learn their trade quickly. We’re proud to boast that many of our senior EMC engineers have 20 to 30 years or more of EMC experience with Elite.
We have also grown our Environmental Stress Lab group by adding Eric Lindberg (EET) and two part-time co-op technicians Alex Dolecki (EE) and Kegan Orloff (EE). Also, during the summer months, we’ve put the talents of three bright engineering interns to work including Jessica Klouda (ME) and Jeff Klouda (CSE) both currently studying engineering at Notre Dame along with Henry Thompson (EE) studying at the University of Illinois.
We greatly enhanced our in-house expertise for mechanical and electrical test automation by bringing senior mechanical engineer Todd Bruhl (ME) to Elite. Having Todd now on board we can respond more efficiently with our life-cycling automation and fixture development. The automation we engineer can be used to support testing either at Elite or for clients to use at their own facilities. Todd is already moving ahead on initiatives to retool and optimize many existing Elite test systems and is working to develop new test stands that will make us even more efficient, accurate, and productive.
Finally, we’ve brought-on Ed Allfrey as a management consultant to help Elite navigate our path through growth and put more structure to our process improvements. We’re leveraging Ed’s 35 years of business consulting and training expertise to keep our business thinking strategic and focused on the most important people and process goals.
It’s an exciting time to be at Elite Electronic Engineering and we look forward to meeting the next challenge our customers present to us. Thank you for partnering with Elite and we always appreciate hearing how we can more effectively meet your expectations.
Labels: Elite Expands capabilities