With intense deadline pressure to demo a new working system at a tradeshow, a global manufacturing firm based in China turned to Voler Systems for help.

They contacted us 8 weeks before the tradeshow, but like many large organizations, it took four weeks to give us approval to start. They were committed to a demo of a working Point of Sale (POS) system on the tradeshow floor.

We built a tradeshow booth prototype to distribute power from the POS base to an iPad, printer, keypad, and cash drawer. In 3 weeks, we designed the system and related schematics, did the board layout, built the board, and completed the system test and bring-up.

In all of our design projects, we pay attention to risks, but on a tight timeline where you only have one chance to get it right, you have to be very detailed about identifying all of the significant risks for functionality and delivery.

Early on, we identified mechanical fit as a risk since the mechanical team was in the UK: we didn’t want to have something not fit a few days before the show and no way to recover, so we sent them a board early to test for fit. We also drew upon our relationship with suppliers and partners to find those who were comfortable with short deadlines and had met them reliably in the past. This was especially important for board layout and final assembly, where mistakes can either trigger a board spin or a nonfunctional system.