November 18, 2021

How did we get through a crisis we were going through?

In this article, I want to share my real life experience from year of 2012.

After 3 years of effort and overcoming the difficult customer convincing and bidding procedures, we finally achieved the biggest personal tracking project which was realized in those years in Turkey or Europe.

Our project required location tracking of an enormous field team of about 6,000 postmen. We have developed a portable GPS tracking unit and very complex software specific to customer needs in accordance technical terms of tender.

The delivery day has come. We delivered 6000 GPS tracker devices and bulk charger units to their warehouse Everything was going well until our customer started to drop-test our devices under very severe conditions, but this drop test turned into a nightmare for us. I must say that the test was not by certain standards. The test takers threw the devices with all their might and dropped them to the ground from very high points. This was such a serious problem that it resulted in the return of the manufactured devices and the cancellation of the project. I asked for time to review the problem, it was Friday, but they only gave me 3 days to detect the problem and offer a solution.

I immediately returned to my office and started to examine it with my team. We concluded that a small design mistake on the plastic housing caused this problem. When the device was dropped, the PCB flexed because it was not mechanically supported by the housing and was damaged during this time. We immediately produced a quick solution to solve this problem and supplied the necessary materials, made revisions on 30 devices, and delivered these devices to our customers for testing. I held my breath and started watching the their very strange drop-test method. They were very surprised by the results! All of the new devices passed those heavy tests with 100% success. Anyone couldn't be happier than me in the world.

However, the problem was not over. These revisions were required on 6000 devices, but the customer was saying that they couldn't return the products taken into the warehouse according to the law. The revisions had to be done in the customer's warehouse located in another city and it was far away from the city center, and we had 3 full days to complete it. Due to heavy snowfall, transportation was very difficult and the weather was very cold. but there was no time to lose.

The process was simple, but time was very short to make it, and I immediately found people who could help me from the electronics students and teachers of the nearest technical colleges and universities. I organized their transportation to the warehouse, I quickly provided all the necessary tools and equipment. I bought electric heaters to keep the team warm, I did not neglect the tea coffee and regular food service :) I gave a short training to the team about the process to be done and made sure that the job was done properly throughout the process.

At the end of this difficult week, we completed all the work on time and ensured that the customer happily received the project. These events were very difficult for that day, but I gained a wonderful experience. I have to admit that since then, I attach 10 times more attention to mechanical design. We were saved from a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars thanks to our ability to produce quick solutions and manage the crisis.

September 15, 2021

Was there IoT in 2011?

As usual, we received a request for a proposal for a vehicle tracking system, which will not be considered too many quantities. When I realized that the customer was a municipality, it caught my attention and I wanted to visit them to better understand their real needs.

During the meeting, they said that they wanted to follow the location of the garbage collection trucks. I realized that their purpose here was not to track the trucks but to make sure that the garbage collection was done properly. Because they outsourced the garbage collection and they had trouble keeping the citizens happy, no matter how much money they allocated to garbage collection.

After a short while, I designed an end-to-end IoT system very quickly and presented a solution proposal that would meet all their needs. Within the scope of the project, UHF RFID tags were placed in the garbage containers. We integrated the RFID reader into our vehicle tracking device and mounted that equipment on their garbage collection trucks.

In this way, we ensured the reporting of containers that could not be emptied on time. Since there were no Android or IOS devices at that time, we automated the workflow with in-car Windows CE tablets.

We have turned small demand into a value-added project where tens of thousands of containers can be tracked. This experience showed me once again that no customer demand is unimportant, big or small, and listening to customer actual needs is very important. When I look at the past, I take rightful pride in realizing a project beyond the age of 2011, when the name of the IoT concept has not been mentioned yet.

September 03, 2021

The solution we developed for the security forces was the center of attention in the press.

We can open new markets by making minor changes to the productized solutions we have. That's exactly what we did, and we presented the product we developed for postman tracking to the Police Department. and thus we opened a new niche.

The system we have developed for night guards in Turkey has started to be used by security forces all over the country. In the operation centers established, the guards began to carry out their duties safely under surveillance. Through the SOS button on the device, they can forward their support requests to the operations center in case of an emergency.

With the command sent to the devices by the central management software, the guards receive vibration notifications and can give feedback to the operations center that everything is fine. This product, which we specially produced in line with the needs of the police department, attracted great attention.