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Embedded Engineers as Trusted Advisors
The legacy walls between areas and disciplines inside of a manufacturing plant have melted away, leaving behind a complex, inter-woven tapestry of interconnected workers and departments. The speed at which technology advances inside of plants would make it nearly impossible for most organizations to support all systems via internal personnel. The internal support teams of today are smaller than they once were while the reliance on the plant tech has grown. The tasks of hiring, training, and then retaining highly technical talent in IT, engineering, general maintenance have become more difficult.
This is where a connection with a turnkey systems integrator like ECS Solutions, Inc., (ECS) pays dividends. ECS has many deep relationships in which they act as a trusted advisor for their clients. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident and advantageous than with their embedded engineer contracts. These arrangements provide solutions by making the entire ECS team available to clients as a true extension of their internal teams. As a true turnkey systems integrator, ECS operates at the leading edge of all the technology that make modern manufacturing plants function. Their team remains abreast of both legacy and new controllers, motor control, and user interface technology. They also boast a significant staff which focuses on related IT matters such as server setup and management, virtualization, networking, cyber security, and more. The entirety of this organization is available to clients both within the confines of projects and as part of embedded agreements.
“We’ve seen dramatic shifts over the last generation with respect to internal staff at our clients’ sites: whether via retirement or attrition, their teams are smaller”, says Randy Otto, president of ECS. “Couple that with the rapid speed of change in industrial technology and we’ve seen the struggle. This is why we developed the embedded engineer concept”, he continues. Historically, organizations would engage outsourced tech staff as part of projects where they would purchase specific aptitudes on occasion but this left challenges in the support arena. Traditional engineer-for-hire contracts can deliver a highly potent solution in terms of a single discipline but these rarely cross into other technical areas. “We architected these arrangements specifically so clients could benefit from the many decades of experience of our entire team”, continues Otto. “The clients have a primary responsible person from ECS in terms of one of our engineering directors. That person participates technically when their discipline is needed but they also manage the relationship. They help the client to develop and maintain task and support lists and they arrange the proper resources inside of ECS when they themselves are not the answer”. This arrangement is precisely what expands a simple, myopic service arrangement into a multi-faceted, high-tech solution.
The contracts are typically established for an overall quantity of hours rather than a quantity per month. This allows a liaison on the client side, working with ECS’ assigned engineering director, to plan work around typical demands inside of the plant(s) without complex computation of over or under use per month. “It is important that the client provide someone in terms of relationship management. This person doesn’t need to know technical details of what ECS does but they do need to be in tune with the comprehensive needs of the facilities”, Otto adds. “This also keeps the use of our assets disciplined inside the client organization”.
Embedded Engineer contracts are available to all ECS clients regardless of location. Remote access enhances their support ability while minimizing wasted time and expense. Small work teams can throttle up as needed to address specific efforts or to cover times when multiple disciplines of support may be needed. This planning is all done in concert with assigned engineering director and managed via ECS’ ConnectWise platform. This environment provides a means to add new work efforts, to prioritize tasks, and generate reports so the client is aware and in full control of the work activities and monthly spending. Contract hours carry over and the arrangement can be cancelled at any time.
“These arrangements started out as a way to bridge the support needed by our clients that couldn’t be easily captured inside of a structured project”, says Otto. “Today we see the most effective and nimble of our clients use these arrangements like that but also to spin up efforts that would be far too conceptual to even scope for internal funding, let alone to go outside for bids. This allows them to leverage our team and their deep knowledge at even the earliest phases of any size work effort”, he concludes.
The speed at which industry continues to evolve will not slow. Existing demands will continue to change, and disruptive new facets will be added. Thanks to the trusted advisors at ECS, today’s manufacturers have a reliable partner that allows them to work from the leading edge immediately, free of challenges they might otherwise face if attempting to address these via internal staff alone.
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