December 6, 2016
As the remaining days count off in December, we look back on a very exciting but challenging 2016. We also reflect on our efforts to invest in and improve our services all in the name of meeting customers’ needs and expectations.
Guiding our direction is the valued input we receive from clients. This feedback comes from first-hand conversations and suggestions, email surveys, as well as staying current on tech, regulatory, and industry trends.
We continue to hear a familiar and consistent theme for our customer requirements. First, clients want us to provide a high level of technical expertise and competence to ensure accurate and trusted results. Second, they want quick access to our services sometimes with little or no notice; and third, they stress the importance of having highly efficient test services from start to finish so that their projects are completed in a timely and cost-effective way.
So what did we do in 2016 to step up to the challenge? Here’s a quick review of the year’s highlights and steps we took to satisfy customers’ top demands:
We Added New Staff –
To ensure quick access to lab services we added 7 new test engineers. All are fresh-thinking engineers who are eager to learn and grow with Elite. Ricardo Parrales, Justin Ibarra, Tylar Jozefczyk and Devin Vallee are the four newest members of our EMC test team. Brad DeGrave, Nick De Pasion, and Nella Granback also joined Elite this year to serve our environmental customers. We’re extremely impressed with their contributions to date and are inspired by their work ethic and desire to help Elite customers succeed at their business.
We welcomed the specialized expertise of Todd Bruhl and Ed Allfrey. Todd brings over 25 years of machine design, automation, and instrumentation experience. With his skillset, Todd can provide turn-key fixturing, test tooling, and test automation quickly, then fully integrate and support it within our lab. Ed Allfrey has been a business consultant to Elite for over 20 years. Now as a permanent employee he’s able to directly infuse his insight and business acumen into our company and help us increase productivity. Ed is applying structure to our process improvement efforts and he provides valued input to our strategic planning team.
We’re Adding More Space –
Another major step toward reducing lead times is the acquisition of 15,000 sqft of new test lab space. This significant addition by Elite will positively impact both environmental and EMC scheduling. Stay tuned for more details on this planned expansion coming in early 2017.
We Continue to Automate and Add New Technology –
Elite invested in nine Rohde & Schwarz ESW receivers. These instruments will greatly improve the efficiency of our emissions testing and will provide helpful troubleshooting features and capabilities to benefit our clients. We increased our lightning test capacity by acquiring another Thermo WF3 lightning generator. We also developed software and procedures for the newly released MIL-STD-461G. Likewise, for automotive testing, we updated EMC software and streamlined our processes. Elite’s new automatic project reporting email system was developed by our engineers to record and communicate to clients the status of testing on a daily basis.
New Services –
In November we brought online new antenna testing services and consulting. This capability directly complements our regulatory test and certification services for wireless devices and it provides a one-stop for all compliance and RF design optimization needs.
Internal and External Training Offering-
- We continued to maintain a monthly regimen of in-house training to keep Elite staff informed on new processes and technology. We continue to actively support individual learning through professional credentials such as iNARTE. Elite also established an agreement with DeVry University to encourage employee graduate and post-graduate education.
- Our staff presented online webinars, traveled onsite to give customer regulatory training, and presented live at IEEE events including the annual EMC symposium.
- Elite partnered with local experts to connect clients with world-class EMC design training.
- Elite engineers remain active leaders in technical standard writing committees and bring first-hand expert knowledge of industry trends back to serve Elite clients.
We certainly stayed very busy for 2016 but our entire staff looks forward to the next set of challenges coming in the new year. Watch for our January newsletter where we will have more information on our facilities expansion and the new services being launched.
Thank you again for choosing Elite as your test and certification services provider. We welcome your feedback on our services and please consider sharing your comments, suggestions, and ideas with us to help us serve you better.
Elite Electronic Engineering, Inc.
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