Aug 20

Is U.S. Manufacturing Dead? Not Here, It Isn’t.

By Michael Curran DOOH Trends, Electronic Contract Manufacturing, Electronic Manufacturing USA, Technology No Comments »

Is U.S. Manufacturing Dead? Not Here, It isn't.

Micro Industries, Westerville, OH

In the United States and around the world, we’ve come to accept the premise that manufacturers design products with shorter and shorter lifecycles . . . that we’ll throw these products away once they’re no longer useful. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in the electronics industry, in which product lifecycles typically are six months to a year. Electronics that last more than two years are considered antiques. Each generation of a device offers more features and capabilities, usually at lower and lower prices.

Unfortunately, this cycle is driven by manufacturers that have simply become trading companies, putting their brand names on products that are designed and manufactured elsewhere, usually in the Far East. The problem is that products made over there typically have high initial failure rates—in some cases as high as 5 percent—with annual failure rates approaching 20 to 25 percent. Most manufactures find it cost effective to replace defective products or to scrap products that fail within the warranty period. This means that over four to five years, some component in a product made in the Far East probably will fail. Usually, consumers just toss these products away.

I’ve worked in this industry for more than 35 years and have seen firsthand the migration of products to manufacturing operations that produce the lowest-cost products without concern for reliability. Certainly, market economics are important. But because most of the products Micro Industries makes are unique and low-volume when compared with consumer products, we choose to make our major systems components here in the U.S.

A company like ours can’t compete on a direct-manufacturing-cost basis with the Far East. We focus instead on total cost of ownership. We buy all critical components from the highest-quality manufacturers around the world. I’m referring to industrial-grade rather than consumer-grade components, such items as displays, power supplies, blowers, etc. Our motherboards are designed for specific applications and incorporate key functions that let us manage and repair most operational failures remotely, without traveling to the site. Our process technologies are well-proven and run by experienced professionals who understand that quality and a reputation for reliability are what maintain customer loyalty.

I doubt that Micro Industries will ever make the lowest-priced products around, because that would involve too many compromises. Our goal is to provide customers with the best value over the life of a product—even if that is many years.

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Aug 09

Those Dreaded Words: Back-to-School Shopping

By Michael Curran DOOH Trends, Digital Signage, Digital Signage Content Management, Queue Management, Queuing Systems, Technology Comments Off

Queue Management

Touch&Go Checkout Director

It’s time for streams of parents to drag their reluctant kids into stores all over the country to try on school clothes and pick up tons of classroom supplies. As if dealing with adolescent attitudes weren’t enough, many retailers make it difficult to check out and leave once you have your merchandise in hand. Invariably, I get stuck in the slowest line.

It’s no wonder that time-crunched parents are increasingly purchasing online these days. But that can be problematic, too, especially when buying clothes. (Just how much did that kid grow over the summer, anyway?) This leaves the dreaded trip to the mall. Fortunately, some retailers are adopting strategies to lessen your pain; these range from adding unconventional checkout stations to using cueing systems. As a New York Times article said recently, “The science of keeping lines moving, known as queue management, is a big deal to big business.”

Here at Micro Industries, we offer retailers one of the most advance queueing systems available. We designed our Touch&Go Checkout Director™ to manage multiple queuing lines. This gives a retailer several options for controlling checkout flow, so that customers don’t disrupt in-store traffic patterns. The Checkout Director incorporates one or more all-in-one computer display systems and provides both voice and visual indications of the next available checkout register. These announcements are triggered either by a wireless connection activated by a store associate at the point of sale (POS) or directly through a LAN connection. Available with a 32-, 46- or 60-inch LCD display, the Checkout Director is effective for stores with as few as four POS systems; it’s also scalable for up to 64 checkout lines.

Our system gives customers an immediate indication when a checkout register is available. A store associate simply presses a button after completing a customer transaction. This notifies the Checkout Director to display an animated number that indicates the open checkout line, along with an audio announcement. The process improves checkout times as much as 40 percent.

Micro’s Checkout Director also can support up to seven queuing lines when space is at a premium. It even can support separate express lines for customers buying a limited number of items. All of these features are easily configurable through a smart phone.

You might remember all of this the next time you’re stuck in a checkout line, loaded down with notebooks, paper, crayons and book bags, with harried sales associates waving their arms and shouting for the next person in line. Then you could suggest that the store install a Checkout Director to improve your customer experience . . . because some other retailer certainly will.

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Jul 06

The Fourth in Ohio: Still “Made in the USA”

By Michael Curran DOOH Trends, Electronic Contract Manufacturing, Electronic Manufacturing USA, Technology Comments Off

Everyone at Micro Industries gets together around July 4 every year to celebrate the fact that we still manufacture products here in Westerville, Ohio. This might sound unusual, since American electronics manufacturing has largely moved to the Far East over the past 30 years. Corporate consultants and Wall Street analysts believed that profits from manufacturing should fund new ventures, in higher-profit growth markets . . . like financial services. We all know where that led—to huge bonuses for executives and Wall Street managers, and to a massive recession for the rest of us. Without reinvestment, a lot of U.S. manufacturing quickly became obsolete, especially in the technology sectors.

One advantage at a privately held company like ours is not needing to worry about any negative reviews from Wall Street. Micro Industries continues to invest in the manufacturing resources that help us remain competitive worldwide. In electronics manufacturing, the cost of labor is only a tiny portion of the overall costs—typically, just 3 to 5 percent. More than 80 percent, however, goes for materials. To stay competitive, we have to shop globally for our components. Unfortunately, this also means that we have to guard against inferior Asian components and a flood of counterfeit parts.

A case study by Charlie Barnhart & Associates shows that when all costs are considered, OEMs have never achieved significant savings by shifting manufacturing to Asia. This was always the case for low-volume, high-mix production. Now, as Asian manufacturers invest in the capital equipment necessary for producing advanced electronics, it’s also true for medium- and high-volume production. And this doesn’t factor in the appalling piracy of intellectual property (think about iPhone clones, for example). If Apple can’t protect its IP in Asia, it’s not very likely that any other U.S. company can, either.

The Fourth of July represents the United States’ great independent spirit. Yet, even as we celebrate, we rapidly become more dependent on a global economy created on Wall Street. Companies make quick profits and executives get obscene bonuses, at the expense of workers and customers. America’s greatness has always been driven by dynamic leaders whose vision disrupted the status quo. Today, though, we see only consensus building to placate a financial model that is devastating the American economy and others. The Information Age has made it possible for our leaders to gauge the response to their decisions even before choosing a direction—which only ensures that we’ll sink deeper into mediocrity.

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Jun 30

Fishing the Elk: Unplugged in West Virginia

By Michael Curran For Fun, Infrastructure, Technology Comments Off

Nothing is more relaxing than fly fishing. After my son completed his college finals recently, we packed up the truck and headed for the Elk River in eastern West Virginia. The Elk is one of the last streams in the eastern U.S. with a population of wild trout. As any fly fisherman will tell you, wild trout offer the ultimate challenge.

Elk River in West Va.

The trip to West Virginia was uneventful—freeways past cities and towns with strip malls and fast-food chains. We even saw a digital billboard near Clarksburg, WV. At Elkins, though, we left the freeway for a winding, two-lane highway. We snaked through narrow valleys and over larger and larger mountains. After 90 minutes of seeing only an occasional house or farm, we reached the small inn where we were the only guests.

I tried to call home to say that we had arrived. There was no cellular service and my iPhone was useless. The only phone in the place was a pay phone with a bad handset. Fortunately, the innkeeper had a dial-up modem that I used to send an email. Being an email junky, I didn’t know how I would survive the stay.

We went fishing the next day with a local guide, driving an hour farther into the mountains. We didn’t pass a house or farm until we reached an idyllic setting deep in one of the many valleys. Our guide had just retired after 31 years teaching forestry in the local high school. Lumber and coal mining are the major employers in the state and the evidence was everywhere.

During lunch, our guide asked what I did for a living. I talked about the design and production of computers systems. He said his school had installed a computer a few years ago and that it had made his life easier. He had entered students’ test scores into it and the computer calculated their grades at the end of a term. The man just laughed when I asked if he had a computer at home. He is on a party line, one of the few left in the country. The folks who share it with him, he said, wouldn’t be too happy if he tied up the line with a dial-up connection.

I soon began to enjoy my own freedom from the constant stream of emails. We spent the next two days in places even more remote, chasing the elusive rainbow, brown and brook trout in the crystal-clear Elk and Williams rivers. By the time we left, I had almost forgotten the lack of a broadband or cellular connection. Then, as soon as we reached the freeway, my cell phone came alive with hundreds of emails.

I envy the people we had met on our trip. Their lives don’t yet include what is coming even to rural West Virginia—the complexity and stress of being instantly available to anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world. For myself, I hope someday to spend more time on a wilderness stream, less connected to the world, pursuing trout.

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May 24

Report from NYC: The SGH Launch Party

By Michael Curran Creative Content for Digital Signage and Kiosks, DOOH Trends, Digital Signage, Digital Signage Content Management, In-store Social Networking, Interactive Digital Signage, Retail Kiosks, Technology Comments Off

With all the glitz and glamour of a Hollywood premier, Sunglass Hut opened its flagship store on Fifth Avenue late last month. SGH then hopped the Atlantic to open its London flagship store with just as much fanfare on Oxford Street the very next night!

A steady stream of celebrities, dignitaries and SGH execs talking with the press caused chaos on the New York sidewalks, where passersby strained for glimpses of Rachel Bilson, Coco Rocha, Zoe Kravitz and many others. Inside, we were greeted by an exquisitely choreographed show, with sleek models snapping pictures of other models posing in chic sunglasses. Everyone was encouraged to try on shades and pose for SHG’s innovative Social Sun system.

What exactly did Big Apple glitterati have to do with digital signage? We were invited to Fifth Avenue because Micro Industries Touch&Go Paige® is a key component of the fun. Our mCosm team developed the software named “Social Sun” by Sunglass Hut. Social Sun lets customers try on sunglasses, digitally capture and compare their looks, and share the images with family and friends. You can email the pictures, post them to Facebook or even upload them to the Social Sun page on Sunglass Hut’s website. In-store, you can also post pictures to our fantastic Touch&Go Messenger 65—in New York, our pictures joined the photos of the partiers who packed the event.

Micro Industries Mike and Mandy Curran

Sunglass Hut CEO Fabio d’Angelantonio said he wanted to make the Fifth Avenue store a better showcase for the company’s products than the simple glass counters for the shades Luxottica makes for such fashion houses as Prada, Chanel and Polo Ralph Lauren. “The New York and London flagships provide an opportunity to make the brand a consumer destination that showcases sunglasses like no other retailer in the world,” d’Angelantonio said later in London. Consumers own far fewer sunglasses than shoes, which he believes leaves significant potential for the category to expand if sunglasses are seen as essential fashion accessories.

To mark the NYC flagship launch, many of the fashion houses that work with Luxottica provided original artwork, which hung in a private showing room in the rear of the store. Such big fashion names as Dolce & Gabbana, Tiffany, Burberry, Gucci and many more expressed their best wishes in their trademark style.

Guest DJs Fab Moretti and Binki Shapiro of Little Joy provided the music, their rock theme adding to the event’s vitality. Jenny Lewis’ live performance was outstanding. It was a fabulous night that left our little Micro Industries contingent feeling energized and a long way from home. Toto, we aren’t in Ohio anymore!

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Apr 05

What’s “HOT” ?

By Michael Curran Digital Signage, Fanless Computers, Retail Kiosks, Technology Comments Off

When it comes to computers “HOT” isn’t necessarily a good thing. Heat is the major contributor to computer system failures whether it’s from a power supply, a CPU fan or hard drive. Prolonged exposure to high temperatures will cause these devices to fail and take down your system. In a retail environment computer systems are subjected to conditions that significantly increase the probability of failures due to heat, therefore when selecting a computer system for an interactive digital signage application there are a few things to consider.

Today’s retail computers, digital signs and retail kiosks are designed to run under a very specific set of conditions. They’re expected to be in operation about 8 hours a day in an office or home environment (with typical temperatures ranging from about 60 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit) without a significant amount of dust or debris in the air. If you deviate much from these conditions, you can significantly reduce the life of a computer.

In a retail environment computers are expected to run as much as 24 hours a day reducing the life expectancy of a typical retail computer to about 1/3 of its normal life expectancy. Most in-store computer systems are hidden away in cabinetry or fixturing or are hung from ceilings where the temperature could be as much as 20 to 30 degrees above ambient conditions. Retailers are also very susceptible to the impact of dust, from exposure to the outside, from cardboard boxes and even generated from receipt printers. This dust is drawn into the computers by fans and can significantly reduce the efficiency of the computers cooling systems eventually causing critical components to overheat.

To compensate for these issues computer component manufactures like Intel have designed thermal failsafe mechanisms into their chips like the Intel® Core™ i7 processor to protect the CPU in the event that the chip is subjected to temperatures outside its normal operating range. This minimizes the damage to one of the more expensive components in the system but it doesn’t prevent damage to other key components like the power supply, processor fan or even the disk drive where all of the systems application programs and data are stored.

When evaluating computer systems for a retail application the primary criteria for selecting a system should be the ability of the system to deal with the environmental stresses in a store.  A number of vendors like Micro Industries have developed “Retail Hardened” or “Ruggedized” computer systems that can survive in typical store environments. This typically involves using more expensive passive cooling technology, industrial grade components and mobile or solid state disk drives. All of these factors increase the cost of the system compared to standard retail computer systems but it will minimize the amount of downtime that a retailer will experience and downtime in retail translates into lost sales opportunities.

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Mar 12

Report from Las Vegas: More of the Same.

By John Curran DOOH Trends, Technology Comments Off

This week we have a guest blogger: John Curran, CEO of mCosm, our affiliate company.

Aside from Intel, there weren’t many new, big-name vendors at the Digital Signage Expo (DSE) in Las Vegas last month. A few vendors had smaller booths this year than last, or had disappeared altogether. LCDs weren’t much different from 2009, and many booths looked like the TV aisle at Best Buy. Most PC-player-based software had identical features and functions, the only difference being the interfaces. And it was difficult to learn much technical detail, because most sales reps delivered canned demos that gave only a 30,000-feet overview.

I imagined some poor attendee (maybe it was you) visiting DSE in hopes of finding the best solution for his or her company’s digital-signage needs. It wasn’t a pretty picture. There were only disconnected elements of solutions, from vendors that all looked the same, their prices included. Hardware options varied widely, including store servers with line extenders and LCD TVs, low-end players, high-end players, PC players with LCD monitors, all-in-one digital systems, video walls, etc. Add mounting and cabling, and the whole hardware side started to resemble a high-school science project.

Software options for digital-signage management were even more confusing. The choice came down to broadcast versus narrowcast, influenced by whether you needed to update information hourly, daily or just a couple of times a month. You also needed to know how the software would integrate with your graphics-production workflow, what file formats and fonts to support, and how much training was required to run the network. Finally, you had to know how a software choice would affect the hardware required for deployment. Whatever the solution, it was expensive to buy and operate.

Even worse was this question: How would you know whether a particular solution would meet your needs over the next four or five years? Only a handful of vendors at DSE probably could be helpful here, especially digital-screen and player vendors affiliated with technology providers. But this involves more of a channel strategy than integrated solutions for a vertical market.

Despite all these issues, digital signage is a growing market, predicted to reach $4.5 billion in 2013. For that to happen, however, users must find the technology easier to evaluate, buy, deploy and operate. This will occur only through market consolidation that provides users with one-stop shopping for digital signage from viable vendors. Maybe we’ll see progress at DSE 2011.

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Mar 03

The Message Was Clear: Grab Their Attention and Keep It

By Michael Curran DOOH Trends, Interactive Digital Signage, Technology Comments Off

Anyone walking around the Intel booth at Digital Signage Expo in Las Vegas last week couldn’t help but notice our new Touch&Go Messenger. After all, an 82-inch LCD is hard to miss, even in Vegas. AVTechnology even named it one of the five highlights of the show.

Retailers looking to grab their consumers’ attention will love the Messenger 82. This all-in-one system features a Samsung full-HD display with an interactive touchscreen, Intel’s i7 processor technology and Microsoft’s Windows Embedded Standard 2011. It’s ideal for either display or kiosk applications in large, open retail spaces. Just imagine using this big, beautiful unit in a mall, airport concourse or department store.

We make the Messenger 82 in America-in Westerville, Ohio, to be precise. It continues what we consider our Touch&Go heritage of stunning picture quality, high performance, and elegant styling. Intel processors deliver breakthrough performance and improved power efficiency. The Messenger 82 also uses Intel® vPro™ technology, which gives you remote management capabilities, reduces down time and lowers your total cost of ownership, the TCO.

The 1080p, ultra-bright LCD has a viewing angle of 176 degrees. (Try getting that with your flat screen at home.) It also has a 160-Gb hard drive and a DVD/CDRW drive. Plus, you can order optional IR multi-touch interactive touch screen, internal stereo speakers or a TV tuner. A protective glass panel makes the LCD practical and easy to clean in the kind of high-traffic spaces typical of retail environments.

The picture quality is outstanding in full HD, thanks to LVDS technology. That’s the low-voltage differential signaling that drives the flat-panel display right from the motherboard. It’s as clear as looking through a window-and significantly better than connecting a regular computer to a standard TV.

The Messenger 82 is retail-ready for interactive consumer kiosks, self-service applications, digital signage, store maps, advertising, messaging, product information, and demonstrations. Simple, elegant mounting options mean you can hang it from a ceiling or a wall.

And Micro Industries doesn’t just offer displays. Our mCosm subsidiary can supply software that lets you create, manage, deploy, and change your own digital media, on the fly, without expensive, third-party intervention. (See #5 of DSE’s 10 top digital signage trends). mCosm solutions couple broadcast television, closed-circuit video, digital signage plus interactivity, all on the same system.

Yes, altogether, we’re pretty proud of what we showed in Las Vegas.

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Feb 25

Answering the Ancient Question: Yes, Bigger Is Better

By Michael Curran DOOH Trends, Interactive Digital Signage, Retail Kiosks, Technology Comments Off

The age-old question about size has real significance in the Digital Signage Market. Historically, if you wanted large digital signage in a retail space, you stacked several smaller displays together. You needed lots of high-performance video cards linked to a powerful computer system that let you color-match all of the displays, and sophisticated software to distribute the image across all of them. Amazingly, some very good vendors can deliver this solution today.

The simpler approach is one large display. Several major manufacturers, such as Sharp and Samsung, offer large LCD panels (65-, 82- and even 108-inch models, measured diagonally) at very attractive prices. The single-display approach has numerous advantages, especially in image quality, computer requirements and power management.
Image quality is critical in a retail environment. For technical reasons, spreading content across multiple screens decreases resolution and makes the image look grainy. Not many retailers can afford to provide clear viewing from 20 to 30 feet away, the normal distance for your eyes to integrate a matrix image. And if one display fails, it’s almost impossible to find a replacement that matches the color and hue of the other displays in the matrix. A single display, however, provides outstanding detail, even if the customer is standing close to the screen.

Power and heat management are also important factors to consider in matrix systems. You need adequate ventilation, since heat rising from the lower displays can affect the service life of the upper displays. This takes up floor space that you no doubt could put to better use. In addition, a matrix of four 42-inch LCDs uses about twice the power of one 82-inch LCD panel, which provides about the same viewing area.
I’ve always believed in keeping things simple when it comes to computer systems. A single large display can be powered with a single motherboard and graphics engine. Content is displayed in native mode, so there’s no need to divide the image and distribute it over multiple displays. One display also reduces the potential for errors at both the hardware and software levels.

So, there’s really no question that bigger is better in retail Digital Signage. But, just to be sure, check out all of your options and determine the best long-term solution for your particular application.

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If you’re attending the Digital Signage Expo (DSE) in Las Vegas this week, please stop by to see us in the Intel Corporation exhibit, booth #1223. We’ll show you our Touch&Go Messenger 82™, an HD LCD display that I’m confident will amaze you. Judge for yourself whether bigger is better.

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© 2006-2009 Micro Industries, Inc. All rights reserved.
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