Background
With the security environment across the world getting increasingly complex since 9-11,   the demand for equipment that can capture and analyze data near real-time has been exponentially rising.  Developing such multi-technology equipment and bringing them to market in a very tight development window provides a severe challenge for many firms.

Challenges
In order for this project to be executed well, a number of issues needed to be addressed in parallel, from technology to logistics. On top of everything, the cost of development also had to be tightly controlled.

In the technology area, an appropriate encoder needed to be selected, with minimal cost for the MPEG4 codec. In addition, simultaneous support for MPEG4 and MJPEG (Motion JPEG) was seen to be a key competitive item, coupled with audio channels and multiple power options. At the time, there were no off-the-shelf parts that could handle all the requirements, and price-appropriate programmable DSP's also could not handle the workload. More capable programmable DSP's did exist, but they were too expensive for the budget and came with extremely high power consumption levels to fit the application appropriately.

In the logistics area, the client was in Japan, with the Engineering team located in a remote part of the country (over 3 hours by non-stop bullet train from Tokyo), the end customer was in Europe, and the GDA team would need to work 24 x 6 days around the clock to meet the aggressive schedule. This meant that 3 GDA locations – San Jose, Sacramento and Kochi (India) were pulled in to achieve this goal. Entire activity from design to prototype manufacturing including procurement and testing were coordinated across multiple teams and various time-zones.

The Path to Success
GDA took responsibility for product development, definition and deployment, starting with the creation of detailed specification document, and continuing up to procurement of tools, parts, fab and electronic assembly services. Development of a comprehensive manufacturing diagnostics and test software program was also completed on time and delivered to the Japan factory with great success.

A project team managed out of Sacramento on the technical side was set up, with San Jose on the relationship side. Weekly conference calls were held, along with frequent follow up visits to the client location in Japan for milestone reviews and the systematic transfer of knowledge to the clients’ team as the project evolved.

The multiple streaming task, along with a number of additional features, was accomplished through software synthesis and synchronization of the MJPEG images using leftover processor capacity. This was in turn enabled by the careful choice of a dedicated encoder chip with key surveillance oriented features.

Summary
The first phase of the project – delivery in time for a key tradeshow – was completed in 4 months, encompassing hardware and software development from GDA, with the client taking responsibility for the optics and imager front end – areas of existing strength for the client. By using a blended resource pool across USA and India – in a turnkey fixed price engagement – the client was also able control and forecast costs accurately, in addition to the on-time delivery of the product. Further, the systematic transfer of knowledge addressed the other key business requirement from the client - fulfilling all business requirements.

As a result of this performance, the client was successfully able to rapidly enter a new market from a position of strength and completely surprise its competitors and delight its customers – while also maintaining strict schedule and cost adherence.