• Delivered a major system upgrade out of the Golden office (to RAVE reviews from the customer – I cannot stress enough how pleased the customer was) to a major beer producer that included:
  • Malt delivery system cutover from relay logic and Norpak controls to DeltaV in a 48 hour period
  • Cut over the Batch and Grind and Water Blending Systems in 7 days
  • Also performed a major PLC/HMI upgrade to the grain handling system that was on an original Allen Bradley PLC (i.e. predecessor to the PLC-2). LSI upgraded the system to Controllogix/Intellution
• Completed a Digester upgrade to a DeltaV DCS in a liner board paper mill. This effort was deemed a major success by all parties
• Completed a Drives and Motors upgrade on a liner board paper machine from DC drives and motors to AC liquid cooled drives and motors. LSI provided Installation engineering, checkout, mechanical installation support, and PLC programming support. LSI partnered with Rockwell Automation to give the client a major success
• Provided a 692 drawing IFC package in 6 weeks to a major utility to rave reviews, as here is the client’s words: “All I can say is: My hat off to all of you at LSI that made this level of detail in such short time period.  I still need some time to digest the material but what I can see is that this is world class work and I truly appreciate having you as a most valued team member for controls and instrumentation work we will see now and in the future.” And….. “You guys are all amazing and true professionals, you make my life a lot easier so thank you very much for all the good work you keep doing for us.”
  
• Completed a $700,000 panel (102 panels total) order for a pipe manufacturer that spanned both panel shops (Memphis and Rossville) with a design that was changing during the procurement and fabrication process as the client had an accelerated project schedule. This project was also done to rave reviews as I talked with the client last week and he stated to me that we did a heck of a job giving the challenges with the design and the short timeframe with which to build them (16 weeks to procure and fabricate all panels – over 2,000 man-hours). LSI also provided controlnet expertise during the panel checkout as the client’s local engineers had little experience with the technology.
  
• Booked a large order at a power plant in China that will involve integrating a Rockwell Automation Factorytalk View SE system to a Controllogix architecture
  
• Received the 2^nd order for DeltaV configuration effort in China at a chemical producer. A US based engineer will be travelling next month for support and commissioning of this project with our China team.
  
• Is executing a project that involves moving a candy making line from one plant to another out of our Rossville, GA office. The effort includes electrical design (panels, conduit and cable schedules, etc.), programming (Controllogix PLC‘s and Iconics HMI), and overall project management. This effort may lead to similar work in China.
  
• Booked a large order for an acrylic manufacturer for a DeltaV upgrade for their site in TX. This comes on the heels of years of successful work at their Memphis location.
  
• Our MQCS group (http://www.logicalsysinc.com/industries/69-refrigeration.html and http://logicalsysinc.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/lsi-helps-a-customer-move-operations-to-mexico/ ) has moved 4 air conditioner production lines to Mexico and is in the process of helping the customer move 3 more lines. One line was completely new equipment, while three have been a combination of existing and new equipment.
  
• Booked a boiler and steam production optimization study at a Memphis process plant, which could lead to major costs savings in steam production for the manufacturer.
  

The thing that is most striking is that most of these efforts were executed by multi office teams that comprised of engineers from more than one LSI offices, and in many cases, 3 LSI offices. It is truly a case of “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts” because LSI is getting the right people on the right job at the right time, irrespective of which office that the people are from. It is that cohesiveness that makes LSI very unique in the system integration world.

In part I of this blog, the importance of having a good functional description was essential in developing a good simulation application, which then leads a good factory acceptance test. In this blog, the importance of simulation is discussed, along with simulation techniques.

Simulation of the software application is a critical step in any project in LSI’s view. The goal of simulation is to eliminate as much of the unknowns as possible before the most expensive phase of the project begins: startup and commissioning. As one of our customers puts it: “the goal is to eliminate the white knuckle ride of startup.” The other goal is to provide the right level of simulation to have a good factory acceptance test (FAT) or software acceptance test (SAT). The same LSI customer from above offers this perspective: “Simulation allows us to exercise all anomaly conditions of our process without real world damage.” Their application involves running gas compressors on a large pipeline. Emergency shutdowns can be catastrophic if not handled properly. Proper simulation allows for these conditions to be analyzed and taken care of before the control system is applied to the real world application.

A good simulation accomplishes things like:

• Confirms that interlocks are working properly
• Tests the sequences in the process or machine to make sure the steps are executing properly and that the proper transitions between steps are identified
• Confirms that any faceplates or pop-ups work correctly on the human-machine interface
• Any bugs in the code are detected and fixed
• Confirms the alarming strategy

Simulation techniques vary rather widely and the proper technique needs to be applied depending on project complexity and the project needs. As a user, you truly want maximum gain with minimum cost, so choosing the right technique is key. There are generally three types of simulation techniques applied and they are:

• Low Fidelity
• Medium Fidelity
• High Fidelity

In low fidelity simulations, simple “tiebacks” are used (i.e. when a valve is called to be opened, the open switch signal is triggered via a simple tie-back from the open output after a set time) and there is typically logic written in the control system to perform these “tiebacks.” Most of the time, these simulation routines in the PLC are removed after Factory Acceptance Testing. DCS systems often have a “simulation mode” built in. Many times it is up to the engineer doing the simulation to manually intervene to respond to process changes (i.e. if a pump that is filling a tank is called to run at a higher speed, then the tank level fills faster – there will have to be some interaction to make this happen). This technique is used for simple processes or machines where there is not a lot of loop tuning and loop interaction.

Medium fidelity simulation is much more process centric and takes things like mass balance, material balance, and heat balance into account. To continue with the example above, with the tank filling algorithm, a medium fidelity simulator would take into account that the pump is running faster and that the tank will consequently fill faster. This type of simulation is often used in process applications where flows, temperatures, and pressures need to be simulated, but the complex interactions that can take place between these variables does not need to be modeled. In medium fidelity simulation, it is not expected that loops will be tuned and loop tuning will need to be done at the time of commissioning.

High fidelity simulation is the most time consuming and cost intensive approach, but it can more than justify itself when doing a highly complex, integrated process. For instance, in simulating a power plant and its dynamic response to step changes in demand, it is critical to understand how the plant will react. The engineer and the operator would like to know what the impacts would be to steam flow, boiler drum levels, turbine speeds, etc. A high fidelity simulator literally simulates the entire plant and all of its interactions as it would happen in real time. The operator literally would see no difference in the simulated plant versus the real plant. Certain industries such as power and petrochemical require this level of simulation as it is critical to know how the processes will react together before the system goes live. It takes a lot of time and money to get the simulation completed in a high fidelity simulation. In industries like power and petrochemical, it is essential. In simple batch processes or machines, it is overkill.

The critical piece in all of this is to evaluate what makes sense for the application. LSI has used all of the techniques above. LSI writes a fair amount of simple tieback logic for simple batch processes and simple machine control. For medium fidelity simulation, LSI has used products like Mynah’s MiMiC (http://www.mynah.com/), Cape software (http://capesoftware.com/), and other products. For high fidelity simulations, LSI has used the above products, or has used more “home grown” systems from LSI’s partner company, Enero Solutions (http://enerosolutions.com/dynamic_simulation.php). (LSI and Enero partner together on steam optimization projects in power plants and cogeneration applications in plants like paper mills). During each project, it is imperative that LSI and the end customer evaluate the level of simulation required to streamline the startup and commissioning process.

More resources to understand simulation, how to apply simulation techniques, and what products are available can be found in the following locations:

http://www.mynah.com/content/understanding-simulation-fidelity

http://www.mynah.com/content/developing-medium-fidelity-dynamic-simulations

http://modelingandcontrol.com/

http://enerosolutions.com/dynamic_simulation.php

http://enerosolutions.com/simulation_steam.php

http://capesoftware.com/

http://www.mynah.com/

• Reduced time on-site testing and troubleshooting software
• Faster start up
• Less end customer changes during startup
• Less stressful/smoother startup

In part I of this blog, we will discuss the first step in having a good simulation and factory acceptance test, and that is having a good process/functional definition. Certainly, the first component to have a good simulation and factory acceptance test is to agree on how the process works and what the end user wants to accomplish during the project. The key is to document the process and how the operator will interact with the process on the front end so that clear expectations are set and so that the software can be written as efficiently as possible. This is true of a new process or of one that is undergoing a major retrofit. I can think of two examples of where the process is existing, but where the process definition and functional specification process has been or will be critical to the success of the project. One of those is a process in a steel mill that has not changed for many years and is almost all discrete functions. The other is a feed mill that has become heavily batch oriented in which the process has changed drastically since the plant’s inception. In the first case, the code was written by the OEM in such a way that made it difficult to troubleshoot. As a matter of fact, this customer states regarding the importance of a good functional description: “Changes and improvements that have been performed on various operating systems (fluid, pneumatic, electrical, control, etc…) will impact how the original system function has changed.  In order to properly prepare for project development and implementation, you must ensure that all impact and aspects are included.  The functional description is a necessity in order to ensure all parties involved understand and agree how the system will operate.“

In the latter project, 7 different programmers have touched the code and have had 7 different ideas on how to accomplish things. There is code in the PLC that is simply “dead” and does nothing at all. In both cases, the end customer wants a readable, functional, and expandable set of code in the end. The processes are vastly different, the PLC brands are different, but what is constant is that both have agreed that defining what the process does and how the code will look is a critical step in the project. From the end user standpoint, they will gain the following benefits:

• They will be absolutely positive how each and every part of the process functions and how the software was written
• The maintenance and operations staffs will get exactly what they want because it is well defined
• They will have an operator training manual for training new maintenance and operations personnel

LSI has used many techniques to document processes, from flow charts, logic diagrams, HMI screen samples, and in some cases, just a plain description of the process with words. At certain times, our end users have a format that they would like us to follow, and in other cases, there is not a predefined format to follow. The most successful way to document a process and how the operator will interact with the process through the HMI is to be as graphical as possible. For that, logic diagrams and flow charts (we have even pasted sample Sequential Function Chart code from the proposed PLC program in the document as a flow chart) are extremely useful. The most important thing is that a customer can understand what is being conveyed very easily, and this is best done by producing something graphical in nature. Another benefit of this approach is given by Nick Riggio, LSI’s Golden, CO branch manager: “[taking the graphical approach above] allows for the customer and us to have code reviews along the way. They actually get to see what their code will look like in the end and comment on it during the project.” Nick also states the following: From a technical standpoint, we have to detail all of the interlocks, permissives, etc. in the process. We can also drive out any anomalies that affect the system as well. The customer will end up with more organized, robust, and easier to troubleshoot code.”

In part II of this blog, I will discuss simulation techniques and why simulation is important; and in part III I will discuss what an end customer can gain out of a good factory acceptance test.

The credit itself is called the Research and Experimentation Tax Credit and was enacted in 1981 and it allows companies that perform technological research to get a write off on their taxes on researcher’s wages, their supplies, and a portion of subcontractor labor (up to 65%), as long as the work is performed in the U.S. This tax credit was reinstated for the 14^th time since 1981 on December 17, 2010 as part of H.R. 4853, the “Tax relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act.”

Basically, there are four criteria, which I will summarize below:

1. Permitted Purpose
2. Elimination of Uncertainty
3. Technical in Nature
4. Process of Experimentation

You can read a summary about each of these criteria at a CPA website here. Also, here is a case study about how improving a manufacturing process may qualify for this tax credit. What this means is that if your company has engaged in activity where research and development was done to improve a product or manufacturing process, then you may qualify for the tax credit. This could include the work completed by LSI or other outside contractors. The key is to have a well documented case, and to have accounting principles in place that allow these R&D costs to be tracked and documented easily. The burden of proof is on the tax payer, therefore, you should contact your tax professional to investigate if and how this tax credit can be applied to work in your facility or facilities within the last year.

Useful links on the subject matter (all were used in the information provided above) are below:

Article on the irs.gov website

Article on inc.com

Article from R&D Magazine

More Information #1

More Information #2

You can find more about LSI here. LSI is also on Facebook,
Twitter, and LinkedIn.

It is no secret that America has lost manufacturing jobs, nor is it a secret that the amount of engineers entering the manufacturing sector has dwindled. In several discussions I have had with local universities, even the engineering disciplines have seen a reduction in enrollees over the last 20 years. We must all work to change this and to make America a leading producer of engineers and to continue to be innovative.

America is still strong in manufacturing, much to many people’s surprise, but we have to be smart about what we produce and we have to use automation to lower costs of manufactured goods and to make better quality products. China and Mexico have taken much of the labor intensive, low cost manufacturing jobs. However, America still outpaces them both in manufacturing output in raw dollars because we are still able to produce higher dollar products much more efficiently and at a better quality. This trend needs to not only continue, but accelerate. Helping schools draw more engineering talent into their programs, and getting more top talent into manufacturing will help us as a country achieve this. LSI is investigating more and better ways to work with the local universities to help in this manner and this conference is one step in this process.

Please join us in the sponsoring of this event. You can find out more details and sign up here:

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers( IEEE) – Professional Awareness Conference

Many people do not realize that LSI works prevalently in quality control systems for the air conditioning and refrigeration business; nor do people realize that LSI has significant mechanical design and mechanical installation management capability. This blog highlights how these two groups of engineers worked with a customer to move manufacturing capacity from one site to another.

LSI has been working with a major air conditioning manufacturer for many years in doing manufacturing quality control systems and had used LSI’s” MQCS” product in many applications. You can learn more about MQCS here. This manufacturer is moving some manufacturing from a current US site to a site in Mexico and asked LSI for assistance. LSI had already built charge equipment and implemented MQCS software for the US plant.

Challenges

There were 4 production lines running in the US and since the company didn’t want to shut down one of these lines, a new line would need to be designed and delivered to the Mexico site. The idea was to have one line up and running in Mexico, then move the other lines as needed, so that no manufacturing capacity was lost. The challenges were many:

• Coordination between US and Mexico based engineering and quality control departments
• Old Run test procedures had been developed in a Dbase III format and needed to be migrated to SQL as efficiently as possible
• The manufacturing capacity needed to be increased to satisfy some more stringent requirements and additional test procedures
• The manufacturing capacity and extra run test stations needed to fit in the same or smaller footprint than the lines in the US
• The schedule was tight and the end user’s engineering resources were limited to complete the project in the time allotted

Solution:

LSI performed the following tasks for the project to solve the challenges outlined above:

• Developed an import utility for the old Dbase III database that allowed LSI and the end customer retain all of their current test procedures. No re-development was necessary for the legacy products and test procedures associated with them
• LSI built 5 new refrigerant charge stations, along with 5 auto run test stations for the new line
• LSI redesigned the framing structure to allow the product to be rotated and have multiple operations performed at the same station which allowed for more capacity in a smaller physical footprint
• LSI designed and built these stations in a modular format so that they could be easily reassembled in the plant, once the stations were built and shop tested. This allowed for a faster installation/commissioning time
• Customized the MQCS software for both the US and Mexico site to accommodate the new testing requirements

Lessons Learned/Conclusions:

LSI was able to perform this project ahead of schedule and under budget. The customer actually was able to make a pilot run on this line in 80% of the time allotted and the line is scheduled to be online sooner than expected. The customer has committed to further work with LSI as a result of this successful project, which includes the 4 additional lines’ relocation to Mexico and the interface of the MQCS software to SAP; which is being rolled out in multiple locations.

MQCS panels as installed

MQCS panel, with the software up and running

You can always catch the latest news about LSI, as well as other updates LSI has published recently here: http://www.logicalsysinc.com/latest-news.

Other brands under the Riviana/Ebro Puleva include New World Pasta.

LSI started working with Riviana on the plant before ground was broken and performed the following tasks for this Greenfield facility:

• P&ID Drawings
• Electrical Controls design, including all panels associated with processing and truck unloading
• Electrical contractor bid package
• PLC programming for the processing area, truck unloading, integration of the OEM supplied equipment, and interfaces to packaging equipment
• HMI design and programming, including server setup
• S88 batch implementation
• Control networks design and implementation
• Mechanical design and equipment layout
• Mechanical installation management and scheduling
• Project management and scheduling
• Panel fabrication
• Startup and commissioning

LSI was thanked at the celebration for being a part of the success. LSI strongly believes that Riviana is great for Memphis and we are looking forward to working with them for years to come! For more information on LSI, click here.

LSI has been working with a client who has a remote location in the middle of the panhandle of Texas for the past 2 ½ years. This client has a custom batch process that has enjoyed continued growth over the last few years (astronomical at times) which keeps us constantly challenged to keep up with their process. Several times over the last few years, business opportunities (new customers for our client) has challenged LSI to enhance the process, re-write major core chunks of the application to fit the new needs, or add additional equipment to support the process. The major challenge is that the core code in the PLC was written long before LSI became a part of the team, and was written for an entirely different process and business model. The client has grown from a single product (all with 1 ingredient or slight variations with the 1 ingredient that corrected the dry matter consistency of the product) that was run almost continuously to a highly customized batch solution as now almost one-half to two-thirds of the batches are customized with multiple ingredients.

There are several things that LSI has learned through the last two and a half years that can help our clients make their own process better and we would like to share those experiences in this post.

Challenges:

About a year and a half ago, we were challenged to make  batches that have a tighter tolerance in their main ingredient. The goal was to have 95% plus batches have a  +/-1000 pound tolerance for the main ingredient in a 56,000 – 57,000 pound load; and for 90% of the batches to have a +/-500 pound tolerance. The main ingredient makes up between 60% and 100% of the batch. The customer also had a goal of increasing the speed of the fill for the main ingredient. At that time, 2,000 to 2,500 pound swings in either direction for final weight to target of the main ingredient weight were not uncommon. This had not been a major problem for a single ingredient batch that ran almost 100% of the time, but it did cause manual intervention at times and was certainly seen as a hindrance to the goal of doing more blended loads that had multiple ingredients. The customer didn’t want to have to make adjustments to the batch’s individual ingredients after the mixer was filled to keep the entire batch in specification, as it would slow down the process and potentially lead to human error.  The constraint that made this goal very difficult to attain was the fact that the feed rate for the main ingredient is highly variable during a batch (0-50,000 pounds per minute) and is difficult/impossible to make constant. So, LSI wrote a very simple algorithm that slowed down the fill rate at the end of the batch that allowed for approximately 97% of the loads to be within 1,000 pounds, approximately 90% were within 500 pounds of the target fill, and about 65% were within 250 pounds of the target fill. This was a huge improvement and allowed our client to land a new customer.

However, now the client needs even more of the loads to be within the 500 pound specification because of requirements from another new client and because of some extremely tight tolerances on some ingredients. Some of these ingredients will be less than 100 pounds of the entire batch, so if the main ingredient gets way out of specification, then the entire load can be out of specification.

Solution:

So, LSI has started using the plant’s data historian, which was unavailable at the time of writing the above algorithm, to analyze why there are still some overshoots or undershoots in the process and this data gathering and reporting is allowing LSI to “tune” the algorithm used to get the accuracy needed. Feed rate at the end of the fill cycle is being correlated to overshoot or undershoot values.  If the feed rate is below a certain value, accuracy within 250 pounds is nearly guaranteed. Outside of this rate, the results are more variable. LSI is now noticing that the plant is achieving feed rates much higher during the filling process than when the algorithm was first written, and because of this, these “golden” feed rates at the end of the batch are not being achieved as often. LSI is using a formatted spreadsheet report to identify batches out of tolerance (each have a time and date stamp of when the batch ended), then is using trends of key data during the batch (feed rates, mixer weights, current of motors, cutoffs of equipment, etc.) to analyze the process data on why the “golden” feed rates were not achieved and why the batch went out of tolerance.

LSI has been able to tune the algorithms for more repeatable performance. For a recent 38 hour period, 349 batches were run with 99.7% of the tolerances for the main ingredient being under 1,000 pounds (1 batch), 96% were under 500 pounds, and 75% were under 250 pounds. Without the correlation provided by the historical data and trends, then this tuning would not have been possible.

Figure 1 - Formatted spreadsheet. Purple rectangle shows final feed rate (more green = higher rate). Black rectangle shows overshoot (more red = worse overshoot)

Figure 2 - Scatter plot showing improvements in accuracy over a 3 day period.

Figure 3 - Mixer trend - Light blue line shows ingredient 1 target, pink shows ingredient 1 actual, green is overall mixer weight, and dark blue shows the feed rate into the mixer.

Lessons Learned:

Being able to correlate data from a process historian has allowed LSI to become the “process engineer” and optimize the process itself through the PLC code. Many companies collect all kinds of data, but to be able to actually act on the data being supplied is the real value of having the data in the first place. The company must also have intelligence within its own ranks or within its partner network to actually act on the data and make the improvements needed. This has to be done by people who understand the process. Without intimate process knowledge, the data really has limited value.

LSI will be working with this client in the future to put together more reports that will allow them and us to find opportunities to optimize the manufacturing process itself and/or the operator’s work flow as well. We will also be looking for lost opportunities in revenue(i.e. if the truck scale was empty too long, meaning that there was no truck to fill to send to a customer – as this may point to issues within the customer’s  own supply chain). I am sure the customer will continue to challenge us to further improve and optimize the process.

Collecting data for the sake of collecting data is useless. Putting the data to work in optimizing the process or work flow is priceless.

The manufacturing culture is also very different. Some factories have living quarters on site (it is not uncommon for a husband to live at the plant site and only see his wife once every few months), other bus people in and out, and many use a bike, moped, or scooter to get to work. Very rarely do plants try to work with as few people as necessary as we do in the US, because they seem to want to keep people employed, and labor is still cheap in China, although this is changing. I have visited factories where we would have 5 people to perform a task, and they would have 20. I highly suspect that as this middle class emerges and the Chinese become more savvy when it comes to automation, that this will change as well.

To digress for a moment, it is an interesting story on how we even ended up in China. Larry Bailey, our founder and CEO, knew the day was coming because customers would not continue to support LSI executing projects in China in which 30% of the budget was travel. We had worked for several multi-national clients and it was becoming apparent that our cost structure was becoming a hindrance to execute more projects. So, Larry began the search for the right person and the right opportunity. I must admit that Larry did his homework and had great insight into the culture there before starting an operation over there. One thing that is of great value in China is family. The Chinese people are extremely loyal to families, and not always to companies. He had to find someone who felt a part of the LSI family and someone who takes much pride in his or her work. The right man for the job came along in 2003. Hansen Hu, China branch manager, spent two years in the US with his family learning our country’s culture, the company culture, he came to understand “western quality,” and most importantly, he became a part of LSI’s family.  In 2005, Hansen started the Guangzhou operations, which now employs 9 people.

On my two trips to China, I have truly started to understand our value over there. We have several people now who not only are technically capable, but they understand and can speak good English (read and write), and they certainly understand the culture in China. I went on a sales call with Hansen at a process plant just outside of Guangzhou in Nansha. The call was on a US engineer who will be spending the next 5 years in Nansha, along with some of the Chinese staff at the plant. I simply gave a presentation on LSI’s DCS capabilities and our experience with his particular process. However, it hit me as we were walking to lunch as I watched Hansen walk ahead of us, talking with the Chinese process engineer, REALLY what our value was. I told the American engineer as we were walking, what I saw was our value – I stated “we have a guy who speaks English, speaks Chinese, understands both cultures, AND he knows the technology.” The customer recognized this as he made the statement (with a chuckle) “yeah he can talk with my engineers to find out what is really going on around here.” What I didn’t realize until the next day is that we have more than one person who is like this in our China office. Hansen has several capable engineers who have delivered results to US based clients. I have spoken with these customers, and they have been extremely pleased with our engineers’ work over there.

We have just sent one of our engineers, Mark Anderson, from the US to support this first DCS project in China at the plant I mentioned above in Nansha. This will greatly enhance our skill set in China and will also add to our client list. I am confident that I will get a good report on his return.

Other capabilities that we have in China are drafting, programming, panel fabrication, project management, and electrical installation management and execution.

One other great value that we bring to a customer in China is that we have connections on how to get things done over there. We have learned much in our 10 plus years of doing business and our 5 plus years of being on the ground over there. For instance, we understand how to import parts into country if needed (no small feat), how to get electrical installations completed with “western quality” (again, no small feat), and we can certainly consult with any customer on how to execute projects in China or anywhere else in Asia, as we have been there and made the mistakes that many make the first, second, or even third project in the region. I will never forget a call from a panicked customer who asked me if Hansen could help them get a control panel into country as theirs had been flagged in customs for not being CCC (the Chinese UL essentially) compliant. Unfortunately, it was too late for us to help that situation, but we did rebuild the panel for them in China. Once the flagged panel showed back up in the US, we stripped it for spares and sent the parts back to China for the client.

In 2009, on the largest project that LSI has executed in its history, the China office helped LSI get 1100 drawings completed in 6 weeks, as we were literally working on drawings for 24 hours a day for weeks on end. The US would mark up drawings to send to China, and the guys in the China office would make the edits and have them back in our engineer’s inbox when they came in to work in the morning. We would not have been successful without Hansen and crew.

I must admit that if I hadn’t gone to visit Hansen and his people, I am not sure I would have the true appreciation for what they can bring to a multi-national client. I am thoroughly convinced that we have yet to scratch the surface of what value we can deliver in China. I am excited to see the business grow each time I visit.