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Manufacturing Opportunities - AzTech Associates
Most people think of a remote control as something they use to turn their TV on and off. But Geoff Salter takes the meaning of remote control to a whole new level. Salter’s company, AzTech Associates Inc., produces wireless devices that allow users to communicate with mobile or stationary objects that can be situated an arm’s length away – or on the other side of the world.
Although his Kingston-based firm does engineering consulting, designs pilot projects and creates its own products, Salter is modest when he describes AzTech’s core business.
“We just make small computers that do special things,” he says.
Salter graduated from Queen’s University in 1986 with an electrical engineering degree. He got a job running the electronics testing lab at a Kingston mining engineering company, then moved to another position at a biomedical firm called Q-Life, which made portable drug infusion pumps.
Having spent several years in Kingston, Salter had fallen in love with the city. A competitive cyclist, he liked how easy it was to escape town to ride for miles on relatively car-free rural roads. He also enjoyed sailing in the nearby 1000 Islands.
But Q-Life failed in February 1993, and Salter found himself unemployed. Because of its quality of life, he wanted to remain in Kingston, so he figured he’d try his hand at electronics engineering consulting in the city. He formally incorporated himself as AzTech Associates Inc. that December.
AzTech landed early contracts with the biomedical engineering department at Queen’s and with General Motors, for which Salter redesigned circuit boards that guided automated forklift trucks that transported goods around the floors of GM’s Oshawa assembly plant.
His first big break came in 1996, when Salter began an association with Sky Eye, a Montreal company that peddled devices that monitored, via satellite, the location of railway cars. The company had marketing savvy but little in-house technical experience, so Salter was recruited to find contractors and subcontractors capable of putting the devices together. Salter did the design work.
Salter soon realized that Sky Eye needed products that AzTech could actually build themselves (such as solar battery charging and power-monitoring circuits, as well as embedded computer products). Sky Eye agreed, and suddenly AzTech grew from 3.5 employees to six in order to supply the new items. That wasn’t the only change: to remain in close proximity to the Sky Eye headquarters, AzTech opened a Montreal office in 1998. Also that year, to take advantage of a favourable tax climate, Sky Eye opened an office in Barbados, and for two and a half years Salter found himself spending plenty of time there.
Unfortunately, the Barbados move didn’t work out as planned. Expenses ballooned, and Sky Eye was forced to begin winding down its operations. The company folded in 2002. It was a major setback for AzTech, since Sky Eye was its major client.
But not the only client. AzTech was also working – and still works – for Hydro Quebec through an informal but fruitful partnership with Groupe Techna, a firm that supplies the utility with handheld devices used to take monthly readings from household electric meters. Instead of having to get face-to-face with the meters, Hydro’s meter-readers simply stand on the sidewalk with their device, push a button and watch data about the house’s electric usage pop up on a tiny display screen. AzTech designed and built the remote readers, of which 1000 are now in use.
AzTech has also developed its own product lines, all based on its expertise in creating small, portable low-power computer systems. These can be used to monitor and transmit data wirelessly and to control systems from remote locations. The products fall into three general categories: those used for “short-haul” radio communication (from three metres to 10 kilometres); those that use terrestrial based systems – cellular towers – to transmit data; and ones that use satellites such as SkyWave and the International Marine Satellite, or Inmarsat, when distances are huge or when the user is out of range of cellular services.
The applications for AzTech’s various technologies are endless. Petrochemical companies can use AzTech’s asset-monitoring units to track how much oil they have in their oil tanks and gas stations all over the world – Aztech’s modules are fixed to the top of the tanks and automatically relay the required inventory information via satellite (or whatever transmission mode works best in that area). Trucking companies can track where each vehicle in their fleet is located, track mileage and fuel levels, and which cargoes are loaded and unloaded at each stopping point. They can trigger alarms that go off inside the vehicle if it goes off route or exceeds the speed limit.
Similarly, shipping companies can track their vessels’ location, course and speed. Thanks to Salter’s experience in the biomedical field, AzTech also makes a device that allows clinicians to program a series of therapies for patients with implanted muscle stimulators.
Today, AzTech’s business is divided roughly equally between consulting, manufacturing its own products, and serving as an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) – that is, creating technologies such as circuit boards that become a part of products sold by other companies.
Not surprisingly, having an active stake in several operational areas has taught Salter a lot about starting and running a business.
His first tip: be prepared for long hours, because no one cares about your business like you do. Second, cultivate a good working knowledge of finance, business law, labour relations and human resources. “You don't have to know everything about everything, but you need to understand enough to be able to provide direction to the bankers and other experts you’ll be dealing with,” he explains.
Finally, be ready to deal with a variety of different personality types. “You can have all the technology in the world, but the hardest thing in business is finding and keeping good employees,” says Salter. “It really pays to have good people skills.”
Visit AzTech at www.aztechinc.com.
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