National Engineering Month in Canada

Pretty much everything we do at Etratech involves engineering. That’s why we’re pleased to take a moment out of the day to call your attention to an educational project that promotes excellence in math among students throughout our great nation: National Engineering Month. 

Throughout the month of March, Canada's students discovered how they can change the world as professional engineers at over 500 National Engineering Month events that happened from coast to coast. Organized by the profession's 12 provincial and territorial regulatory bodies, teachers, faculties, volunteers and university students, National Engineering Month is an annual celebration of Canadian engineering excellence that promotes engineering as a career choice. 

“Professional engineers shape our world, and our future,” said Engineers Canada President Catherine Karakatsanis. “National Engineering Month is an excellent opportunity for the next generation to discover the creativity and imagination inherent within engineering, and to set them on the path to becoming members of this great profession.” 

According to its website, National Engineering Month offers over 500 conferences and events (such as design competitions, robotics demonstrations and science and engineering fairs) to teach young Canadians how they can design the future by using math, science, technology and creativity to generate things that were once thought impossible. 

National Engineering Month also gives students the opportunity to learn about the remarkable accomplishments Canada’s engineers have made over the years.

Events from each province and territory can be found on the National Engineering Month website. -- or you can follow the hashtags #NEM2013 and #NEGM13 on Twitter. 

National Engineering Month is sponsored by the Canadian Association of Consulting Engineering Companies, the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Engineering Institute of Canada and the Canadian Federation of Engineering Students. 

It’s not too late to learn more about such a worthy project. http://www.nem-mng.ca/

Stay Connected to Your Supply Chain

Global supply chain management is no easy feat. This article details recent difficulties at overseas factories, and lays out some potential solutions for companies to better manage their suppliers and their supply chain. Each step involves additional – though certainly necessary – action on the part of the principal to protect your investments, their products, and their business. We here at Etratech would like to present an alternative to the idea of placing the burden on the customer: the Total Acquisition Management (T.A.M.) system. Rather than placing the tasks of imparting a Supplier Code of Conduct, initiating collaboration with your supplier, and simply “turning risk into opportunity” to you, we manage all steps of the supply chain for you.

What does this mean? For starters, Etratech fully owns and operates our Asia facility. This means that a “Supplier Code of Conduct” that you would expect is already in place and monitored to our exacting standards, not those of another operator. Working with Etratech, you only have one step of research to ensure that your supplier is up to your standards, taking the guesswork out of wondering at just what kind of facility your parts are being manufactured

Next, collaboration with our customers is built into our service and philosophy. We reach out to you and your engineers at every step of the process to harness our collective expertise and ensure that we’re all on the right track toward meeting goals.

Finally, turning risk into opportunity is an optimistic and worthy goal, to be sure, but in uncertain times it can be easier said than done. By locking into Etratech’s expansive network of suppliers and stable supply chain via T.A.M., you’re mitigating much, if not all, of any risk involved.

Be sure to view our YouTube introduction for more information on T.A.M. and all of our other services.

Could Space Elevators Be in Our Future?

Why take a rocket ship when you could take a space elevator?

The futuristic space transportation system, first proposed more than 100 years ago and later popularized by science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, could lead to profoundly lower costs of launching anything into space, while increasing the amount of cargo capacity – both material and human – for orbital trips, estimates suggest.

A space elevator would likely involve a cable – aka a tether or ribbon – stretching from the surface of our planet into orbit. A recent BBC Future feature explained the basic concept: An anchor and Earth’s gravity at the lower end, plus a counterweight and centrifugal force at the top end, would keep the elevator’s tether taut and stationary over a fixed, ground-based station. Robotic “climbers” would then ascend the ribbon from the surface, through the stratosphere and into space, potentially powered by lasers.

Among the major challenges this massive engineering plan faces: creating long strands of an extremely strong but lightweight material to construct the cable, as well figuring out how to operate the system.

As a manufacturer dedicated to innovative design and manufacture of electronic controls, Etratech understands the need for BIG ideas. And today’s innovative thinkers, dreamers and doers are working to make this particular one a reality.

The International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC), a consortium of organizations and individuals worldwide promoting the development, construction and operation of a space elevator, organized the 2012 Space Elevator Conference in Seattle, Wash., in August. The annual conference engages an international audience of scientists, engineers, inventors, educators, entrepreneurs, enthusiasts and students in discussions of space elevator development. The theme of this year’s conference: “Space Elevator Operations and Maintenance.”

Going Up: Etratech to the Rescue

In our last video blog, we showcased our introduction to Etratech’s facilities and capabilities. Today, we’re going to let one of our customers speak for us.

Peelle, a manufacturer of freight elevator doors since 1905, was having issues with installation times, reliability issues, and those associated costs. As you might expect, with elevators, reliability and quality are critical parameters – there’s no cutting corners. Peelle settled on Etratech as their choice to not only deliver the quality, reliable controls they needed, but also to provide full concept-to-manufacture service.

For a company that has installed elevator doors in the White House, the Pentagon, the Empire State building, and many other famous buildings worldwide, only the best would do. We sat down with Peelle’s engineers and learned what other challenges we needed to overcome as a team. They included manufacturing to meet a host of national and international regulations, making installations easier, and modifying the product itself to fit the control solution. Also key? Making the controls easier to operate then your everyday TV remote.

What solution did we come up with? Watch the video to learn, and then visit our YouTube channel to stay updated on our future videos and testimonials.

‘Resource efficiency’ is the goal of the EU’s new WEEE directive

The EU (European Union) recently updated its Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment  (WEEE) regulations with a new directive: By 2020, at least 85 percent of electronic equipment waste must be recycled, according to a report from ITPro.

WEEE regulations are in place to prevent harmful materials from polluting the environment and, with the new directive, they also require manufacturers to recover rare metals used in computers, laptops, smartphones and other electrical devices.

The new laws also mandate that by 2016, 45 percent of electrical equipment sold in the EU has to be recycled, and all types of e-waste, rather than just certain categories, are regulated.

EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik said, "In these times of economic turmoil and rising prices for raw materials, resource efficiency is where environmental benefits and innovative growth opportunities come together. We now need to open new collection channels for electronic waste and improve the effectiveness of existing ones."

At Etratech, we know recycling is critical to the sustainability of our planet. We also recognize the importance of being an environmentally conscious business. Etratech is RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) and WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) compliant. Contact us for more information.

GPS Bracelets for Alzheimer’s Sufferers

Without effective equipment, searching for Alzheimer's disease sufferers who have wandered off can be inefficient. Because time is critical in such situations, every minute lost increases the risk of a tragic outcome.

To help reduce potential injury to adults who wander due to Alzheimer’s, the most common form of dementia among older adults, a program called Project S.O.F.T. Ware has provided GPS bracelets to a group of people with a history of wandering sue to Alzheimer’s or dementia. S.O.F.T. stands for “Satellite Option Finding Technology,” and the bracelet works like a smartphone.

According to a recent report by Global News, the device sends a message to a secure tracking website that police can log on to. Police can call program participants on their bracelet to ensure that they are OK and know where they are. “The device has a speed sensor to detect unusual behaviour (like getting in a car for those who don’t drive) and also sends a notification if the person falls down and hits the bracelet,” the report says.

The technology isn’t perfect. For example, detection is difficult if the battery dies, if the device is submerged in water or if the wearer removes the bracelet. The GPS bracelet also relies on satellite signals and cellular service, neither of which is always accessible in certain locations or areas.

Nevertheless, after field-testing, GPS was found to be the most accurate technology available. It also requires fewer resources compared with radio signal tracking equipment such as RFID, which requires sending officers out searching with antennae and activating ground search and rescue.

With GPS, police can use a smartphone, locate the person and call them – all within 10 minutes. 

Reinventing the Microwave

Holiday time generally means cooking time, and lots of it. That’s why we’re highlighting this microwave that’s been on the market for just a couple of months. Except it’s more than a microwave, more than an oven, and more than a grill, although it can play each of those roles. The LG Lightwave has some additional features that take it above your standard “microwave-oven-grill” combo, a pretty non-standard offering itself.

For faster cooking without a microwave, the oven function uses halogen heaters. The major feature, though, and the reason this appliance has been so talked-about, is the addition of wireless access. That’s right, you can control your oven through your phone. When you just can’t tear yourself away from your favorite TV show, even with a minute of two of pausing the DVR, now you can just adjust the oven temperature from the comfort of the couch. Across the street talking to your neighbor and going a little longer than expected? Set the timer to shut off at the right time. And if you happen to be out at the movies and remember that you never cleaned up after your latest cooking experiment gone wrong, just log in and activate the oven’s self-cleaner from afar.

Of course, with the mix of cooking methods combined with wireless access, the electronic backbone of the Lightwave is complex and intricate. The electronic controls involved in hardware like this are a model for the type of work that Etratech excels at. Do you have the next big kitchen breakthrough? Get in touch to work with our engineers and bring it to fruition.