Date: 19971007 From: "Interface Design Associates PVT., Ltd." To: Jaap van Ganswijk Dear Mr. Ganswijk, We saw your regular replies on CHIPDIR and we believe that you are also in the same field as we are in i.e. embedded controls. We have been developing machine controllers for position control like step and servo motor controllers and drives - these controls run from PCs and from standalone microprocessor based systems. We are trying to getting some embedded controls work - hardware and software development - downloaded onto us. We are pretty fast (in spite of the smaller palette of components available to us due to import restrictions, etc.) We are aware of quite a few organisations (like Verifone, Polaroid, Nortel, etc.) who are subcontracting their development requirements to teams in India. Would you be in a position to use our services. If you think someone could require our services or if you could suggest how we could market our services better, please let us know. Thanks and regards. Iyer Srinivasan K. ============================================================================ INTERFACE DESIGN ASSOCIATES PVT. LTD ( Your position control partner ) 302, ANKUR, GREENFIELDS, SECTOR 16A, VASHI, NAVI MUMBAI 400 705. INDIA. CONTACT : TEL 91-22-7655702,7655904 FAX 91-22-7650519 E-MAIL : intface@bom2.vsnl.net.in ============================================================================ INTERFACE DESIGN ASSOCIATES PVT. LTD. B2/1/IV/441, APMC CENTRAL FACILITY BUILDING - PHASE II, SECTOR 19, VASHI, NAVI MUMBAI 400 705. INDIA. TEL.: (91) 22-765 5702 (91) 22-765 5904 FAX.: (91) 22-765 0519 E-MAIL : srinivasan@idapl.com Introduction : Electronic Design Bureau is a 4 year old company offering turnkey design and development consultancy in electronic system design. The organisation consists of a team of 12 skilled personnel devoted to design and development. Support team of 8 technical and office staff is available for logistic support. Primary Services offered : Design and Development of hardware Design and Development of software In-house artwork development ( upto 4 layers ) Prototyping including PCB manufacture, assembly and testing. Software development ( PC platform ) for : Real time software Data acquisition and control systems Motor control and robotics applications Communication software Testing systems Additional Services Offered : Marketing Support to International Companies - Market Surveys - Local Liaison - After Sales Service - Technology Transfer Consultancy - Project Implementation Consultancy - Recruitment of Personnel The promoters Dr. B. Vaidyanathan - Chief Associate Mr. Iyer Srinivasan K. - Associate Mr. M. V. Narayan - Associate Profile of support personnel BSEE - 6 Nos. Dip. in Electronics Engg. - 6 Nos. Areas of expertise Microprocessor based system design ( 8088/8085) Microcontroller based system design ( 8051 ) Analog interface circuits Motor control circuits ( step ) Motor control circuits ( servo ) Motor drive circuits Power Supply Design Digital Signal Processing Circuits Serial port based communication RS-485 based Wide Area Network Development Real Time Controls DOS/WINDOWS based PC-based Controls Voice Recording and Playback Ultrasonic Transducer Interfaces List of projects completed Hardware PC-based 6 axis robot controller for Welding Robot. Microprocessor based annunciator (48 point) Microcontroller based annunciator (4/8/12 point ) Automatic Mould Level controller ( for Continuous Casting Steel Plant ) RS 485 based Serial Bus Controller and Slave Units ( for access control applications ) Single Axis Machine Controller ( Packaging Industry ) RS 485 bus based Motor Drive Controller Intelligent High Current Step Motor Drive ( 9 Amps./phase ) Emergency Landing System ( for Elevators ) Voice Annunciation System ( for Elevators ) Software Goniometer Control and Automated Testing Software for Luminaires ( Lighting Industry ) AC Motor monitoring and Control Software using Siemens Inverters Development of Real Time OS on PC for Material Testing System. Fault Tolerant Serial Bus based Data Acquisition System ( Access Control Application ) CONTACT IYER SRINIVASAN AT TEL.: (91) 22-765 5702 , (91) 22-765 5904 FAX.: (91) 22-765 0519 E-MAIL : srinivasan@idapl.com Date: 19971009 17:30:56 +0530 (GMT+5:30) From: "INTERFACE DESIGN ASSOCIATES PVT. LTD." To: ganswijk@xs4all.nl Subject: Embedded controller development. Ref.: IKS/97/100901 Date: 9th October, 1997. Dear Mr. Jaap, This has reference to your mail yesterday regarding how we would handle control projects from India - we are feeling very encouraged having received your mail, esp. when you mention that there are a lot of companies who would have this kind of work to offload abroad. We provide below our thoughts on the points raised by you : a. How payments are arranged : By Bank Transfer/ Dollar Drafts. b. How the design idea is transmitted : the options are many : - e-mail is the cheapest and the best - FEDEX - esp. large manuals - typically our customers send us catalogs of their competitor's products, from which they would like to evolve their product. - fax. - this can be very expensive. - telephone - this is also very expensive, but perhaps Internet phone might be cheaper. c. How prototypes are sent and tested : - We typically make around 5 prototypes and we use inland couriers ( FEDEX/UPS ) for sending them to customers. We could do the same thing for international assignments also. - Testing : at our end : we would need to be clear at the beginning of the project, what the test procedures would be - we typically have have a final dry run at our end - this sometimes requires that customers ship one or two of their motors, sensors, to us. at customer's end : we have generally found that that if we cross testing at our end, all outside world problems are taken care of. We find problems related to : : the customer's logic - he discovers that he has made a mistake in the first place - he finds that the original logic decided by him has to be changed : our understanding of the logic : noise and other issues One way in which we resolve this problem is by sending a detailed manual of the system / software. Our methodology involves : I. develop the entire software and write it out on pseudocode [ pseudocode is a rough procedure/call wise statement in english. We have trained some of our customers such that today a 55 year old mechanical engineer ( with self proclaimed zero interest in electronics/software ) who makes wire cutting/stripping machines sends us his logic in pseudocode - we can send you some samples of psuedocode for reference if you wish ] II. send it to the customer for approval III. only after his approval, do we start our design or coding d. How high are the wages : Indian wages run from around US $ 1000 for a good engineer with 3-4 years experience to US $ 2000 for an engineer with 10 years experience. These wages are on a cost-to-company basis. We feel that our company can do work at around 2.5 K US $ per man-month - we can try a few projects with these rates and if we find them unworkable, we could hike it up further. Additional costs - travel, if required to client's place, etc. would need to be borne by the customer. If required, we are even game to do the first project free of cost. e. Which currency would payments be done : We could look at payments in US $, or European Currencies. f. Is inflation an issue : We believe that typical projects should last max. 9-12 calendar months at max. - in these time frames, inflation should not affect us. But devaluation would affect us, esp. if we are procuring some of the equipment for testing - these could be come costlier - but then our inflows also increase proportionately. f. How communication is generally done : As in (b) above, communication of design ideas, etc. would be primarily through e-mail. Some of our customers are large defence/research institutions in India who have been on e-mail for a while. We have found that apart from handling the bean counters/commercial staff in these institutions where we need paper work ( on paper !! ), e-mail works fine. We do require signed documents from our end-customers to prove to the finance guys that we have completed our job or one phase of the job. g. How well does the average Indian engineer communicate in English ; I presume that you would find my English OK - English is the medium of instruction in Engineering Colleges and Polytechnics. One of the important reasons why many companies are zeroing on India are that : - costs are lower - the English language advantage - hardworking nature of the Indians - the average Indian in our kind of business puts in at least 12 hours a day in a 5 day week. h. Facilities at our end : You would be surprised at what we are achieving with our limited infrastructure - we have : Computers - PCs working on DOS/Windows 486s/Pentiums Oscillscopes - 20 MHz 60 MHz 100 MHz i. How can import restrictions affect us ; Today India is opening up and we are able to import almost anything under the sun - the only thing is that we pay a duty of 35% - i.e. a 100 $ C compiler in US costs me 135 $. But if we can set up the whole thing properly, we can classify ourselves as an EOU - Export Oriented Unit - here we can import all equipment duty free since these are for export oriented production/services only. j. How can we guarantee CE norms - To be frank, we have no idea what CE is !!. Actually we in India are insulated from CE and other environment testing issues. Perhaps it may take around 5-10 years for the same to become an issue here. But, we have made products for a Multinational Companies that have been approved for Sale by their Indian Companies. Warner Electric, a division of Dana Corporation, have a collaboration in India - we developed 2 products for them, which they sell regularly in the Indian market. The products are : - packaging machine controller ( drives a CLUTCH-BRAKE combo with 90 Volt overexcitation ) - stepper motor drive ( standard PWM bipolar chopper drive upto 6 Amps/phase ) Warner had taken 2 units of both for testing/approval to Europe and then given approval to their Indian counterpart to sell our products along with their step motors, clutch-brake combinations, etc. Similarly, we have done a lot of work for the Siemens Switchgear plant at Bombay - we have been dealing with a German Engineer, Mr. Peter Peters, who approves of all automation projects. We have just successfully completed a project which involved development of a complete control system for angle contrl on a busbar bending machine. Note that this technology ( anlge control on sheet metal /bus bars ) is very closely held by companies like LVD, Belgium, AMADA, Japan, etc. This letter is very long and I hope that I haven't bored you. I look forward to your reply. Thanks and regards. Iyer Srinivasan K. ============================================================================ INTERFACE DESIGN ASSOCIATES PVT. LTD ( Your position control partner ) 302, ANKUR, GREENFIELDS, SECTOR 16A, VASHI, NAVI MUMBAI 400 705. INDIA. CONTACT : TEL 91-22-7655702,7655904 FAX 91-22-7650519 E-MAIL : srinivasan@idapl.com ============================================================================