Reuse and redesign
07 October 2006
Steve Lane, Commercial Director of Triteq, explains how customer BlueFinger Ltd sought a fast and economic solution to reusing a proven embedded hardware platform, while increasing its functionality and reducing costs to meet the demands of increasingly price sensitive end user markets.
Reusing an existing product design is an effective technique to minimise design risk, development costs and time to market. However, fundamental issues may still remain that prevent the product from completing upon arrival in the marketplace. The base design may not fully meet the applicable benchmarks, for example in terms of functionality. The original product may have been developed to meet cost parameters that are inappropriate to the next generation application and markets. On the other hand, embarking on an extensive redesign could counter many of the advantages of reusing an existing design, and delay delivery of the finished product.
BlueFinger Ltd, a telematics solutions developer, encountered and solved such challenges when developing its AzurTrac-SC Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) for maritime tracking and management applications. Having been formed following a management buy-out of the maritime telematics business of Thales Tracs, BlueFinger sought to develop the Tracs-Ships Security Alert System, originally developed by Thales Navigation to address new market opportunities for VMS. The original Thales SSAS design, having been developed for specific and governmental applications, was found to be expensive to produce. In addition, a modern, commercial VMS requires subtly different functions and capabilities as compared to those of an effective security alert system. As hardware developers for BlueFinger, Triteq was asked to carry out a review of the product to overcome problems with component obsolescence.
VMS has been used for many years. Several initiatives of the International Maritime Organisation, such as the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code also called for greater use of VMS. In addition, generally higher levels of security awareness among developed and developing nations in the early 21st Century are increasing demand for VMS systems.
The BlueFinger AzurTrac-SC provides a means of position reporting and, Inmarsat-C based data communication from vessels at sea. It enables fleet managers or monitoring authorities to manage vessel activity effectively by providing a flexible and programmable reporting capability. Intelligent position reporting, with built in battery backup and tamper detection, enables the appropriate monitoring authority to receive the information required and reduces the chance that the data might have been changed deliberately.
In addition to these demands for new security features to protect the data and record attempts at tampering, Triteq noted that a more robust casing was required, that could also be manufactured at a lower cost than the original product casing.
BlueFinger had already developed its own tracking solution to run on the existing hardware comprising a PC/104 card. This represented a significant investment in terms of software development. However, much of the original hardware was difficult to manufacture, and therefore added to the assembled cost of the AzurTrac-SC unit. Triteq carried out a complete review of the design, and identified that delaying the product's entry to market would present an unacceptable risk for BlueFinger as a new brand. A less risky strategy was required for the short term, and AzurTrac-SC was launched using the PC/104 card running BlueFinger's proprietary code, but employing a lower cost hardware solution.
Cost could also be taken out of the enclosure design and the product could be packaged differently to better suit the marine environment where it was being installed. A longer strategy was also developed.
BlueFinger commissioned Triteq to design a new enclosure, as well as a power supply and interface card for the PC/104 card. A PSU and interface board for the unit was designed and prototypes manufactured. Following this approval, Triteq commissioned metal production, and purchased components, for the manufacture of a batch of 100 units.
Satellite antennae were installed at Triteq by BlueFinger to confirm the operation of the system. Following this testing, the system was successfully installed and commissioned on an overseas fishing vessel fleet. For manufacture, Triteq and BlueFinger worked closely together to ensure that all items including a Satellite Transceiver module, antenna packaging and manuals were available at Triteq for assembly and test of the unit. Following successful delivery, additional orders for further units were received from BlueFinger and manufactured by Triteq.
During the initial product review, the Triteq team concluded that the use of a PC/104 card to control the unit was over specified and added significantly to the manufactured cost of the product. Triteq proposed to BlueFinger that by redesigning this aspect of the AzurTrac-SC hardware, including combining the PSU interface card with an embedded processor, further savings on the manufactured cost of the unit could be achieved. The main technological risk was that the original PC/104 software would have to run on the new platform to avoid redevelopment of a proven software system. Triteq calculated that this was an achievable objective and started work on the new hardware platform.
The embedded microcontroller platform allowed a number of additional benefits, such as over-the-air code upgrade, to be considered for the design. Triteq designed and manufactured prototype circuit boards and developed a core operating system, with software drivers for the hardware interface. Only minor changes to the code were required to recompile for the new host system. By also incorporating embedded test code, the software team comprising engineers from Triteq and BlueFinger realised further savings in the delivered cost of the product, as this eliminated the need for a live satellite link to meet all of the production testing requirements.
Subsequent AzurTrac-SC units have been successfully manufactured at Triteq for installation on fishing vessels across the world. The experiences that BlueFinger and Triteq encountered during the development of AzurTrac-SC demonstrate a combined tactical and strategic to levering the benefits of design reuse, even when the existing design does not entirely meet the current end requirements. Decisive action in the immediate term, underpinned by a long-term improvement plan, allowed BlueFinger to establish its young band in the market place, while maximising the benefits of its long, pre-MOB heritage.
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