Engineering Experience

Joe Piccirilli, Founder and CEO of RoseWater Energy Group, and Mike Wilkinson, Founder, General Manager, and Vice President of Paragon Innovations, joined forces for a special combined episode of their respective podcasts' Engineering Experience and The Next Generation of Energy to address the ongoing semiconductor chip shortage impacting their industry. Wilkinson wasn't going to sugarcoat the situation. “It's pretty devastating. Components are just not available in any flavor. It doesn't matter if it's a chip that everyone thinks about, like a microprocessor that goes into a car or something, or if it's resistors and capacitors.” Wilkinson likened the situation to going to a hardware store and finding no nails available. Piccirilli seconded Wilkinson's assessment. “I have a product, and it's been on our shelf for almost five years. Getting the parts for the existing product that everyone knows what that part list is, I order them a year out, and it's still painful. I have a new product in development that was supposed to be done sixteen months ago. It's the simple things like breakers. And the microprocessors and controllers? Forget those. It's out of control.” With promised delivery for parts that never show, Piccirilli said he'll be lucky if he can get the product launched by the end of 2022.There isn't much Piccirilli and Wilkinson can do besides ration parts when manufacturers cannot fulfill distribution orders. Piccirilli looked at the possibility of engineering around the problem, but there aren't many available avenues with this approach either. “There's only so much you can engineer around without compromising the quality of the product, and because of the market position we are in at Rosewater, I can't compromise the quality.”Although parts may be in scarce supply, the demand for Piccirilli and Wilkinson's products has never been higher.

Joe Piccirilli, Founder and CEO of RoseWater Energy Group, and Mike Wilkinson, Founder, General Manager, and Vice President of Paragon Innovations, joined forces for a special combined episode of their respective podcasts' Engineering Experience and The Next Generation of Energy to address the ongoing semiconductor chip shortage impacting their industry. Wilkinson wasn't going to sugarcoat the situation. “It's pretty devastating. Components are just not available in any flavor. It doesn't matter if it's a chip that everyone thinks about, like a microprocessor that goes into a car or something, or if it's resistors and capacitors.” Wilkinson likened the situation to going to a hardware store and finding no nails available. Piccirilli seconded Wilkinson's assessment. “I have a product, and it's been on our shelf for almost five years. Getting the parts for the existing product that everyone knows what that part list is, I order them a year out, and it's still painful. I have a new product in development that was supposed to be done sixteen months ago. It's the simple things like breakers. And the microprocessors and controllers? Forget those. It's out of control.” With promised delivery for parts that never show, Piccirilli said he'll be lucky if he can get the product launched by the end of 2022. There isn't much Piccirilli and Wilkinson can do besides ration parts when manufacturers cannot fulfill distribution orders. Piccirilli looked at the possibility of engineering around the problem, but there aren't many available avenues with this approach either. “There's only so much you can engineer around without compromising the quality of the product, and because of the market position we are in at Rosewater, I can't compromise the quality.” Although parts may be in scarce supply, the demand for Piccirilli and Wilkinson's products has never been higher.

On this episode of Engineering Experience by Paragon Innovations, host Tyler Kern talked with Brewster Waddell, CEO of TH Waddell Designs, Bob Landers, VP of Engineering at TH Waddell Designs, and Mike Wilkinson, Founder and CEO of Paragon Innovations.

Engineering can involve any industry, and Engineering Experience is all about bringing those unique stories to listeners. Host Tyler Kern and Paragon CEO Mike Wilkinson spoke with Chris Debrecht, Owner and COO of Tempo Financial Solutions, about his company's partnership with Paragon.

Ray Dikun, Director of Technology at Plano Synergy, has a career in telecom that's taken him around the globe throughout the past 30 years. From Motorola to RIM, Dikun's seen the digital evolution up close and is one of its creators. Dikun joined Mike Wilkinson, Founder and CEO of Paragon Innovations, and host Tyler Kern for a peek inside that journey and at how he wound up merging his passion for the outdoors with today's technological IoT advancements.

Calling all engineers: The Works With Virtual Conference by Silicon Labs happens September 9-10, 2020. This free virtual event will bring together industry leaders, hardware engineers, application designers and developers for the largest smart home event dedicated to integrating smart home application designs with any hub or smart home ecosystem. Keith Nesrsta, South-Central Regional Sales Manager at Silicon Labs, and Mike Wilkerson, Founder & CEO of Paragon Innovations, spoke about the upcoming event. Both agreed now the right time for engineers to take advantage of the current smart home ecosystems. “The smart home, if you look at it today, is really in its infancy,” Nesrsta said. “There are a large number of ecosystems that are starting to get deployed into some high volumes. And so, what we wanted to do was create an event that hasn't been done yet. It's an event that really focuses in on the smart home itself.” Works With will allow engineers and developers to innovate, design, collaborate, build and learn how to connect to these different ecosystems with key industry stakeholders. “This is a conference very much focused on the engineering community,” Nesrsta said. “There will be panel events and technical discussions and over 15 hours of material, 40 sections, and 12 workshops spread throughout the two-day event.” “This event is a place for us to share things that we've learned and learn from others in the smart home space,” Wilkerson said. “I'm hoping my team will get the opportunity to learn even more about technologies we can put to use in wireless smart home stuff we're already doing.” This two-day virtual event is free, but registration is required. Register Now.

Ron Farmer called up Paragon Innovations. He wanted to set up a lunch meeting. When the crew at Paragon received him warmly and started checking their calendar, he had to clarify. No, like, now. Luckily, there was a table available at Red Lobster, and Farmer, the CEO of US LED, started a relationship that would last for more than 20 years, with Paragon serving as his technology development partner. The key, Farmer said, is how well the companies fit together. “The gating issue is a cultural match, and that's it. When it really comes right down to it, when we hired Paragon, Paragon did not know how to do what we were going to do in basic terms because they'd never done a product like that before,” Farmer said. “Really hardly anybody in the whole world knew how to do what we were doing. I had to bring the problem, they had to bring the solution.” “They had the skillsets, and it was a good cultural fit. If they had the skillsets and not the cultural fit, it wouldn't have worked out.” Mike Wilkinson (embed contributor page), CEO of Paragon, said Ron's direct approach, not just when asking for a lunch meeting but also when explaining exactly what he needs a white-light LED module to look like. “I love it the most when customers like Ron come and say, ‘Here's what I want, here's what I need.'" Wilkinson said. "Those are sometimes very different things but tell us what do you want, what do you need and then tell us about the environment, help us understand.” The way the two companies and their leaders gel mean the lunch meetings continue, even decades after that hastily scheduled seafood lunch.

Yet, now may be the perfect time to invest for those able to put money into a product or solution. That's why competitions like the Texas A&M New Ventures Competition are taking on increased importance during the COVID-19 crisis. “I think investors always look for something unique and different. Whenever there's a down time or some negative thing in the economy, whether it be 9/11 or this pandemic, it's an opportunity to find things that will solve problems that pandemic or situation has occurring," said Mike Wilkinson, who in addition to serving as the CEO of Paragon Innovations also sits on the Board of Directors for the Aggie Angel Network. But even while savvy investors are looking to fund some of the best ideas, the economic downturn caused by the pandemic has made it difficult to secure that funding. With the Texas A&M New Ventures Competition going virtual this year but continuing its awards, start-up owners were even more excited than usual to see their hard work recognized. “Their want and their need and excitement to compete was palpable, really,” said Lenae Scroggins Vice Chair of the competition. “I haven't had quite as much conversation in the previous years with teams … (but) we were able to continue the conversation and we were able to pivot in a couple of months and go from 300-400 people in the football field box suits to pivot to a 100% virtual competition .. (It was) really quite a feat. “They were so excited we were committed enough to the economy of the state of Texas that we were willing to put in the extra work.” The extra work can pay off in the long run for investors who may be able to fund a product that truly does something different than anything else on the market. While others may produce better short-term returns, funding STEM projects can lead to big-time home runs, said Chris Scotti, Chair of the competition. “If you think about a software start-up, an app, and your path to market, your path to revenue is much shorter than a deeply complex start-up that has to go through tons of prototypes and testing,” he said. “From an investor standpoint, when you look at someone and say, ‘Oh, they've produced this thing,' or it's producing some early revenue, even if they're not profitable, they're producing some revenue. “That's easier for your traditional investor to understand, whereas a technology that needs a ton of R&D before it can get to market, something game-changing that might be a total change to the way you do things … that's harder for an investor to engage in.” Yet, it may lead to the solution to a pandemic or the next technology to come out of a crisis.

Almost everyone has a cellphone in their pocket, able to access information and communicate with other phones no matter where they are - close to a WiFi hot spot or not. So why aren't there more things connected to that network as well? The regulations keeping much of those “Internet of Things” devices off cellular networks are being relaxed by the 3GPP with LTE-M and NB-IoT radio technologies approved to allow While the stand-up comics in the group may already be scribbling down notes, this isn't about sending a text from your toaster or scrolling Twitter on a fancy corkscrew. This technology has uses that will change industries as diverse as health care and shipping. “We a device in development right now for compliance for people that have IV pumps at home to make sure they're using it, when they're using it, when they're supposed to use it and for as long as they're supposed to use it for their infusions,” said Mike Wilkinson the CEO of Paragon Innovations, who also mentioned CPAP machines with technology doing similar tasks behind the scenes by sending off data to medical professionals every morning. Another use case is shipping containers and using devices that allow cargo owners and shipping companies to make sure there are no breeches. Marco Stracuzzi, the head of product marketing for Telit, noted new cellular technology must go beyond a simple one-device case, however, with those utilizing these devices needing to practice savvy device management and make sure devices can be monitored remotely and corrective action can be taken if necessary. “It's not enough to connect the device to make an IoT project successful. In fact, once you connect thousands or millions of devices in the field, you're only halfway because then you need to make sure you can manage all these objects,” Stracuzzi said.