Industry News, Trends and Technology, and Standards Updates

Can you think of a better place to spend time with customers and partners than Munich, Germany during Productronica and SEMICON Europa trade fairs? SEMICON Europa has had dwindling attendance in the past few years, even in a hot semiconductor market, so SEMI decided to combine with the robust Productronica for 2017.  It was a great decision.  This trade fair had 8 full and busy halls as a result; with high spirits from all attendees.  Four of the Productronica halls were dedicated to the SMT industry (Surface Mount Technology) which is part of what we call Electronics Assembly.  This industry is wrestling with moving to Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0.  What better way to learn than to have SEMICON Europa next door?  SEMICON Europa occupied 1.5 halls filled with many of our current customers. 

Cimetrix decided to place our booth in one of the four SMT halls because we have a lot to offer the SMT industry in their migration to Smart Manufacturing.  We had many visitors and discussions on how Cimetrix can help.  There are a variety of ways used in SMT to gather equipment data including older “one way” standards, GEM, and several proposed new standards and our 25+ year heritage in semiconductor equipment automation ideally positions Cimetrix to help customers think through these options.  We also brought extra staff to the show so we could spend time in the SEMICON Europa halls having scheduled meetings with our major European equipment suppliers and factories.  Several new opportunities were brought to our attention and updates/planning for 2018 were discussed. 

By far, the dominant theme at the show was Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing.  There were many excellent presentations in the Tech Arenas; and almost every booth had posters on the move to Smart Manufacturing.  Of note were presentations by Dr. Jan Rothe from GLOBALFOUNDRIES and Jorg Richstein from Jabil discussing their automation plans for SMART Manufacturing; and Dr. Martin Schellenberger from Fraunhofer with a comprehensive set of steps to help companies understand Smart Manufacturing and the steps to get there. 

As a company that focuses on helping manufacturers achieve their automation goals, it is hard not to come away from Munich excited about the next 5 years in electronics manufacturing. 

Over the past several months, we’ve highlighted the importance of explicit and standardized models in the context of equipment communications interfaces and some of the “smart” factory applications they support. The manufacturing stakeholders impacted by these applications run the gamut from process, equipment, maintenance, and industrial engineering to production operations to traceability regulatory compliance… yet these only scratch the surface.

The question you may be asking now is “So what?” or “What should I do with this information?” The answer to these important questions depends on your company and your role. 

For example, if you’re part of a semiconductor manufacturing enterprise in today’s market environment, you know that you can probably sell every good device you make, so there is intense pressure to simultaneously maximize product quality, volume, and [factory and engineering] productivity–a perfect storm. Since lead times for new equipment needed for capacity expansion are at all-time highs, this means getting as much as you can out of your existing facilities while waiting for new deliveries. New applications to monitor and improve these KPIs are being developed continuously, but the one thing they have in common is a reliance on detailed, high quality, easily accessible and interpretable equipment data.

For 300mm equipment with the latest generation of SEMI EDA (Equipment Data Acquisition) interfaces, this means having “good” E120/E125/E164-compliant equipment metadata models as a foundation. On top of this foundation, however, the models must also include the specific parameters, events, state machines, and other items that fully describe the behavior of the equipment according to your unique manufacturing requirements… which can only be achieved by mapping these requirements into specific equipment model elements, and updating your purchase specifications to close whatever gaps you find between what is currently offered by the equipment suppliers and what you really need. Fortunately, we have been through this process a number of times, and can help clarify your manufacturing priorities and translate them directly into updated interface purchase specifications.

Admittedly, this may take some time, but remember that you always only get what you are willing to accept. It brings to mind the old adage: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago; the second 

best time is today.” 

As another example, if you are part of the embedded control system development team of an equipment supplier, you can anticipate not only increasingly explicit model content requirements, but also more stringent performance and testing requirements for the standard EDA communications interface as your customers raise their reliance on this technology to realize manufacturing competitive differentiation. We at Cimetrix have seen this demand build over the past 18 months, and are well prepared to support you throughout the entire equipment development life cycle.

This article is the sixth and final in the series announced earlier this year in the Models in Smart Manufacturing blog series. From here, we’ll soon begin a new series on advanced EDA applications and benefits based on best practices of the industry leaders – be sure to watch for this early next year!

We look forward to your feedback and to sharing the Smart Manufacturing journey with you.

*The visualizations of equipment metadata model fragments are those produced by the Cimetrix ECCE Plus product (EDA Client Connection Emulator).

The SEMI North American Information & Control Committee meetings were held in Milpitas, CA at SEMI headquarters. The following activities might be important for Cimetrix customers and employees.

By far, the longest discussion was surrounding the biggest decision of all. Currently, the EDA standards are using HTTP/1.1 for message transfer and SOAP/XML for message body. This means that the EDA standards are text based. At the time of EDA development, this seemed to be the best internet technology for data collection. Today, HTTP/1.1 is out of date. More recently, advances have been made in internet technology for sharing data in a binary format. The biggest advantage of transferring data in a binary message format is message efficiency. A binary message generally will be about 15 to 20 times smaller than text based messaging. This means less load on the equipment that publishes EDA data, much less load on the network and less load on the subscribing EDA clients. Many alternatives were discussed including WebSockets, HTTP/2, and even HSMS. It was discussed whether to stick with a text based protocol and use compression or move to a binary protocol. Data was presented from a DDA Task Force member regarding a performance comparison between HTTP/1.1 with text messages (like EDA today), HTTP with binary messages, HTTP/2 with SSL, WebSockets with binary messages and WebSockets with SSL. The test results showed binary messaging to be allow 25 times more data collection than the current HTTP/1.1 technology. Ultimately, it was decided that moving to a binary protocol was the right strategic direction.

Another point of discussion was how to implement binary messaging. Google has developed the Protocol Buffer technology. Specifically, we looked at version 3 called “proto3” which defines a notation for establishing binary messages. They have also published open source code gRPC in various software programming languages that implement the binary encoding and decoding for the Protocol Buffer technology and HTTP/2. This seems to be today’s best technology for binary web services. The DDA Task Force is in the process of developing a ballot to propose the adoption of this technology for the EDA messages. If approved, this would be the foundation of freeze 3 communication and a vast improvement.

In Japan, the Information & Control Committee recently created a DDA task force. The leader, Mitch Sakamoto from company ZAMA is coordinating with the North American DDA task force. Similarly, the DDA task force leaders in Korea are also working closely with North America. The Freeze 3 EDA development really is emerging as a worldwide coordinated development. The world-wide cooperation and coordination is much stronger and cohesive than the development was for Freeze 1 and Freeze 2.

The GEM 300 task force passed a ballot approving the use of SECS Message Notation (SMN) for GEM implementations. SMN could already be used anyway, but adding this to the GEM standard makes its use more official. This means that messages can be logged and documented using SMN.

The GUI task force continues to move along with planned improvements for the E95 standard. This including modernizing the graphics in the standard, updating the text and most importantly having the standard include the adoption of small screen devices as an equipment HMI. The new E95 standard will be a major revision standard.

In Korea, several ballots continue to be developed and reworked. This includes an update to the E87 carrier management services standard to allow more precise reporting when carrier approach the completion state. This includes an update to the E142 wafer map handling standard with new features in the schema file. Additionally, they are working on an equipment generic counter standard, which establish standardized methods for equipment to “count” things that happen on the equipment. This proposed specification is a favorite of mine personally. It is a clever way to recognize that it is important to count things on every equipment such as the number of times a vacuum has a been cycled, the number of times a nozzle has been used, the number of times a user has logged in, the number of times a robot has moved a substrate, the number of times an equipment has been restarted. It could be anything and it could be very different on two types of equipment. Collecting such data in a generic, natural way facilitates predictive maintenance; a key to minimizing factory equipment downtime.

Austin, Texas was the site of this year’s conference, going back to its roots after almost 30 years. Because of its unique focus on equipment and process control technology for the semiconductor industry, and the consistently high quality of its technical content, this conference continues to attract both industry veterans and newcomers to this domain, with this year’s attendance over 160.

Cimetrix has been a regular participant and presenter at this event, and this year was no exception. Alan Weber made a presentation entitled “ROI-based Approach for Evaluating Application Data Collection Use Case Alternatives” that was jointly developed with Mark Reath of GLOBALFOUNDRIES. The key message of this talk was that data collection should not be viewed as an all-or-nothing proposition but rather a spectrum of alternatives within which an approach can be chosen that best fits the problem to be addressed. As examples, the presentation described specific FDC use cases that resulted in significant savings through reduced false alarm rate and fewer/less severe process excursions. For a copy of this presentation, follow the link at the bottom of this posting.

Boyd Finlay’s (GLOBALFOUNDRIES) keynote presentation was undoubtedly one of the highlights of the conference. His presentation, “Raising the Bar: Foundry Expectations for Equipment Capability and Control,” painted a compelling picture of how future semiconductor manufacturing equipment must be able to support the growing demand for semiconductors in almost all aspects of modern life, especially in self-driving cars and their supporting infrastructure. For example, one of the specific expectations is that “Fab engineers expect fully integrated instrumentation on and around equipment to provide well established unambiguous high-volume manufacturing sensor supporting BKMs (best-known methods).” This presentation is well worth your time to review regardless of your job function in the industry, so follow the link below for a copy.

Samsung also offered some very interesting insights in a presentation titled “Wafer Level Time Control for Defect Reduction in Semiconductor Manufacture FABs.” It correlated defect densities to position in the FOUP and explained 2 sources for these: 1) outgassing of wafers after certain kinds of processes (which can be addressed with N2 purging), and 2) the difference in post-process waiting time, which must now be considered at the individual wafer level rather than the lot as a whole.

This conference and its sister conference in Europe are excellent venues to understand what manufacturers do with all the data they collect, so if this topic piques your interest, be sure to put these events on your calendar in the future. In the meantime, if you have questions about any of the above, or want to know how equipment connectivity and control fit into the overall Smart Manufacturing landscape, please contact us!

Join us as we meet the Leadership Team of Cimetrix in our “Meet the Team” series.

David Warren is the Director of Software Engineering for Cimetrix where he manages a team of software engineers that develop the company’s product line and improve and maintain existing products. David has over 20 years of total experience and expertise as a software developer. He started with Cimetrix in 1994 and has also worked at Design Synthesis and Philips. David has helped create, develop, and maintain software products for factory automation for many different industries including semiconductor, packaging, surface-mount technology, assembly, and CNC machining. He holds both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Brigham Young University.

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What brought you to Cimetrix originally?

Cimetrix was a robotics company when I joined, almost fresh out of school.  For me, working with robots was a dream job, combining my passions for mechanical engineering and computers.  Today’s emphasis on connectivity and equipment control is just as fascinating!

What's your favorite thing about working here?

I can’t narrow it down to just a single favorite thing.  I love the industry we are in, being able to make a difference in the world, and definitely the people.

What do you think makes a great Director of Software Engineering?

That’s a good question.  The mission of Software Engineering is to make great products—and there is a lot that goes into making that possible.  I believe the vast majority of software engineers have a desire or even a need to create great products, so it’s probably more accurate to reverse that—what is preventing us from making great products?  A great Director of Software Engineering can recognize and remove impediments, whether that is getting better requirements, changing processes, making sure there is adequate time, training, or anything else.  In short, like great point guards and quarterbacks, they make everyone around them better.  That’s the kind of person I want to be.

Do you have a favorite quote or saying? Why?

K.I.S.S., or Keep It Simple, Stupid.  For whatever reason, getting the right level of simplicity is never simple and seemingly undervalued.   If you have something simple and are thinking about adding some complexity or have something complex that might be simplified with a little more work, it is good to have a reminder of the value of simplicity.

How do you deal with challenges that come up in your work life?

A brief moment of panic followed by a flurry of hard work—just kidding.  Though difficult in the moment, taking the time to understand the challenge, going beyond the initial presentation and discovering the underlying problem often can turn a challenge into an opportunity.

What do you like to do in your free time?

My family knows whenever I’m asked, “what did you like most about …”, my answer is always “spending time with my family”.  It’s absolutely true, though.  Whether we are camping, four-wheeling, hiking, working in the yard, or just hanging out, I like spending time with my family!

What's the best thing that's happened to you in your time working at Cimetrix?

I’ve been fortunate enough to participate in many amazing technological achievements here at Cimetrix, but the very best thing is the people.  I can’t count the number of times someone has taken the time to help me grow both professionally and personally.  The mentoring I’ve received is without question the best thing that’s happened to me.

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I have fond memories as a kid spending Saturdays working on the family cars with my dad. We would dive in to taking things apart and putting them back together again. Whatever the problem was we could figure it out and fix it. With cars from the 1960s and 1970s, there wasn’t too much risk with this approach to car repair. Today, I still like to do my own car repairs when I can. But cars nowadays are far more complicated and compact. I have learned that I can’t just jump in and wing it with any hope of getting it done right or in a timely manner. My experience has taught me to rely on the experience of others, learn from their lessons and save myself from late nights asking, “what have I gotten myself into?”

Cimetrix CIM300^TM tool kit out of the box has already implemented a lot of the GEM 300 work for you. Notice I said “a lot” and not “all” of the work for you. To complete your GEM 300 application, your software will have to integrate with CIM300. The GEM 300 standards can be quite complex and some of the scenarios have intricate details. CIM300 provides a rich set of APIs and callbacks to help you implement a compliant GEM 300 solution. The key to success is knowing how to use the APIs and callbacks for the different GEM 300 scenarios.

The SEMI E87 Carrier Id Status state model, pictured below, is just one of many state models defined in the GEM 300 standards.

Figure 1 CARRIER ID STATUS STATE MODEL

There are several transitions in this state model and intricate conditions that determine which transition should be triggered. CIM300 supports this state model, but it requires interaction with your application to know which transition to make in the state model. In my experience, most people handle the happy path scenarios correctly, whether they're “winging it” or had formal training. However, I have rarely seen people handle the error scenarios correctly, without training on GEM 300 and CIM300. While understandable, error scenarios are often hard to follow and the implementation differences are subtle. The risk of doing it wrong in the software will execute the wrong transition in the state model, which in turn sends the incorrect event to the GEM host. The wrong event could really mess things up for the host. In both the happy path and error scenarios, the CIM300 API to call is the same:

CMSLib::CCxE87CMS::CarrierAtPort

However, how you specify the parameters to the call, it is different for each scenario. The differences in how you call the API will trigger different transitions in the state model. Our documentation for this one API call alone is longer than this entire blog post. That is how important it is to get it right. In addition to our product documentation, Cimetrix also provides CIM300 training and sample applications illustrating how to use our products.

I strongly recommend taking advantage of our CIM300 training. Training is the best first step to integrating CIM300 with your tool application. Training is typically a week long and provides an overview of the GEM 300 standards as well as hands-on experience using CIM300. The goal for Cimetrix in training is that by the end of the week-long training, clients have completed an implementation of a GEM 300 happy path scenario. That is, you receive hands-on experience using CIM300 to implement carrier verification (SEMI E87), creating and running a process job (SEMI E40) and control job (SEMI E94), tracking substrates (SEMI E90), and tracking equipment performance (SEMI E116).

Make sure you also leverage the sample applications that accompany CIM300. The sample applications provided with CIM300 give a jumpstart on integrating CIM300 with your own application. You can use the sample application as a reference for how to use our APIs and callbacks, copy/paste portions of the code into your own code, or use our application as a starting point for your own software. If you’re like me, you like having working source code you can refer to for concrete examples of how to do things and to see how things should work together.

If you dive right in and start implementing CIM300 without training or mentoring from an expert, you may find yourself spending a lot of late nights asking yourself, “what have I gotten myself into?” A little training goes a long way in simplifying the implementation!

Find out more about CIM300 or request a Technical Product Overview and/or Product Demo today!

The Interface A / EDA standards define powerful methods for collecting data from an equipment control application. The data collection can be as simple as querying values of a parameter or two, or as complex as gathering thousands of parameter values across multiple reports. EDA specifies the use of internet standard messaging protocols like HTTP, XML and SOAP messages for collecting this data.

It is possible to define so many data collection plans gathering so much data that the sheer amount of data causes network performance to degrade. To remedy this situation, the EDA standards provide ways of sending the data in “chunks,” which dramatically improves the performance of XML over HTTP.

Two methods for sending data in chunks are grouping and buffering.

Grouping

Grouping only applies to individual Trace Requests within a Data Collection Plan (DCP).  If I have a trace request with an interval of one second, a group size of 1 would generate a report every second and send it across the wire. If I change my group size to 10, a report would still be generated every second, but the report would not be sent across the wire until 10 reports have accumulated. Each report has its own timestamp and they are arranged in the order they occur. The following diagram shows a trace data collection report with a group size of 3.

Buffering

Buffering is different from grouping in that the buffer interval (in minutes) applies to an entire DCP rather than individual trace requests within that plan. For example, if I have a DCP with three trace requests and two event requests defined with a buffer interval of 1 (meaning one minute), the trace reports would still be generated at the specified trace interval. Event reports would be generated as the events are triggered. The reports are not sent to the EDA client until the buffer interval expires. At that point, all the data reports that were generated within that buffer interval time are packaged and sent to the EDA client.

Combining Grouping and Buffering

Grouping and buffering can be combined as well. Groups are still defined on a per trace basis. If a group size has not been met when the buffer interval expires, the group report will be in the next buffer report that is sent.

Summary

With the provision for transmitting data in blocks, using grouping for trace data reports and/or buffering for all data reports, EDA is well suited for collecting large amounts of data without having a negative effect on network performance.  

Creating a great company culture isn’t easy. You have to think about hiring the right team members, creating processes everyone can support, promoting an open environment with respect for everyone and without judgement, and fostering a sense of accountability. The Cimetrix Leadership team is always looking for ways to improve the company culture and develop an environment of trust and great communication. Giving everyone a voice and making sure everyone feels comfortable sharing their thoughts is key to employee engagement and maintaining a great culture.

When many members of the team work remotely, however, a great culture can be difficult to form, maintain and share. Remote employees spend most of their time working without seeing the other members of their team face-to-face.  While there are teams that travel frequently between the global offices, it is a rare opportunity to gather the entire company to work, learn and grow together. By meeting in person, our teams can create a sense of personal connection and trust that carries on long after returning to the remote office.  That’s just what Cimetrix did by organizing our 2017 All Company Gathering.

With the theme of “Growth – Business and Personal”, we started the week getting inspired to focus on each individual’s personal and professional growth. We learned about goal setting, reasons many fail to meet goals and a few secrets on how to make and keep effective goals. We were reminded that it’s important to recognize each other and ourselves when great things are achieved. Cimetrix recognized Crystal Glenn, Client Relations Specialist, for her outstanding contributions above and beyond her daily workload in the form of the Cimetrix Super Charged Award – an award that is rarely given and only to those who display the highest achievement in keeping with company values.

The next day began with a very interesting discussion led by the individual Country Managers from China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea about the direction of the company, the international growth achieved in 2017 and  the growth expected over the next few years. A panel discussion including Q&A was highly engaging and fun as everyone got to know the Country Managers and their respective cultures a little better.  A team building experience at a series of escape rooms followed by a discussion and analysis of leadership, teams and communication gave everyone the chance to get to know each other better and work together in a new capacity.

After a morning of working in teams, day three was dedicated to learning how to more efficiently use our time, specifically with regards to meetings. Everyone knows that unproductive meetings can be a drain on time and resources, but all too often we sit through too many of them anyway. Learning when to have meetings and how to make them as effective as possible is a skill that everyone should learn, and we look forward to implementing these new processes at Cimetrix. The evening brought a banquet dinner where we were privileged to hear from Mike Thompson, a shareholder, board member and great friend to Cimetrix.

The All Company Gathering ended Friday afternoon with a company meeting recapping all that happened during the week and a celebration for birthdays, anniversaries and new employees. Interspersed throughout the week were opportunities to get to know employees from different departments and different parts of the world.  Many continued to meet into the weekend for more in-depth training and education. 

The All Company Gathering requires weeks of organization and planning, but in the end, it’s worth the effort to bring the teams together for a few days as we seek to get to know each other better, build trust between team members, have discussions about company culture and core values and improve teamwork skills.  Good relationships are key to maintaining a successful company culture, and the entire Cimetrix team enjoyed this time to recharge and reenergize.

Join us as we meet the Leadership Team of Cimetrix in our “Meet the Team” series.

Alan Weber is currently the Vice President, New Product Innovations for Cimetrix. Previously he served on the Board of Directors for eight years before joining the company as a full-time employee in 2011. He has been a part of the semiconductor and manufacturing automation industries for over 40 years. He spent eight of those years as a Program Manager for SEMATECH, 18 as an Engineering Manager at Texas Instruments, and nearly 10 years as President of his own company, Alan Weber & Associates, Inc. Weber holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from Rice University.  

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What brought you to Cimetrix originally?

I first met Bob Reback in the early 90s when he was working at Thesis, one of the leading semiconductor automation software companies at the time, and I was at Sematech, the research consortium tasked with charting a collaborative path to success for domestic semiconductor manufacturing industry. We were both at one of the early Advanced Process Control conferences, and as we talked, it was clear we shared not just a few interesting days in Dallas, but compatible visions for our respective organizations, basic value systems, and a genuine enthusiasm for working in this domain. We stayed in touch thereafter, crossing paths a few times over the next decade. When Bob took over the reins at Cimetrix and needed to re-populate the Board of Directors with industry expertise, he thought of me… and in 2002 I joined the Board.

Eight years later, after getting to know the entire management and technical team, we all agreed that working inside the company would be an ideal match, and I joined Dave Faulkner’s Marketing department.

What's your favorite thing about working here?

One aspect of the job here I especially enjoy is having a broad set of long-range objectives and the freedom to pursue them as I see fit. This works well both for me and Cimetrix because the current job requirements and my skills and experience are very well aligned.

What do you think makes a great VP of New Product Innovation?

A large part of this role requires an understanding of the technology and market trends that affect our industry, so it’s important to have sufficient breadth and depth of knowledge to see the big picture and spot these trends. International experience is also key, since the industries we serve are increasingly global.

Do you have a favorite quote/saying? Why?

I have favorite sayings for lots of situations, but I suppose the one that’s universally applicable is “Live every day.” This helps me find joy and gratitude in almost everything I do.

How do you deal with challenges that come up in your work life?

I first step back and ask myself the question “What’s the best use of my time right now?” and see if the answer helps me decide what to do next to address a particular challenge.

If that doesn’t work, I ask another question: “What’s the absolute worst thing that could happen in this situation, and what impact would that have?” Then I assess the likelihood of this actually happening… which is usually very small. From this perspective, the fear of imagined negative consequences evaporates, and I can focus on the problem objectively without the emotional distractions.

If that still doesn’t work, I ask myself “How would Mac have handled this?” He was my mentor for many of the years I worked at Texas Instruments, and never seemed to get ruffled by any challenge that would arise… and there were plenty of examples to draw from.

What do you like to do in your free time?

First of all, I don’t believe there is such a thing as “free time.” We all get the same 24 hours a day to work with, and they are all equally valuable! That being said, I enjoy a variety of activities outside the office.

My wife of 40 years, Kathy Allen-Weber, and I enjoy travelling together, whether it’s visiting family in Texas, friends across the U.S. and Europe, or ticking global destinations off of our “bucket list.”

Music has been a big part of my life since I was very young. I sing and play guitar on the worship team at our church, perform with local choral groups whenever possible, and still play the flute from time to time. Kathy and I also like many genres of classical music, and are especially fond of opera.

I also like being outdoors, and Utah’s climate and scenery are ideal for this. I also still play a little tennis, and have recently taken up pickleball!

What's the best thing that's happened to you in your time working at Cimetrix?

One of the best things that happened to us over the last five years was the move to Utah. Both being Texas natives, Kathy and I weren't sure how quickly Utah would feel like home, and were pleasantly surprised to find it was almost immediate. Moreover, moving from a big city (Austin) to a small town environment was like taking a 30-year step back in time—a refreshing transition at this point in our lives.

Join us as we meet the Leadership Team of Cimetrix in our “Meet the Team” series.

Dave Faulkner joined Cimetrix in August 1996 and serves as the Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing and serves on the Board of Directors. Prior to Cimetrix, Faulkner was employed from 1986 to 1996 as the Manager of PLC Marketing, Manager of Automotive Operations, and District Sales Manager for GE Fanuc Automation, a global supplier of factory automation computer equipment specializing in programmable logic controllers, factory software, and computer numerical controls. He earned a bachelor's in Electrical Engineering and a MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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What brought you to Cimetrix originally?

I worked for GE for 18 years and was constantly moving to new locations and new jobs.  It was a fabulous education in business and large company dynamics.  I had the chance to work in every major industry focused on automation.  Especially interesting was the car manufacturing industry.  It was also the time when Jack Welch ran GE so I learned from his leadership styles.  But big companies are hard to impact, cause change and make your own way.  When I turned 40 it was time for a change. A GE friend introduced me to Bob Reback and then next thing I knew my family was moving to Utah to join a small company on a journey to introduce PC based control for robotics. I was interested in this same topic at GE, so it was right up my alley. 

What's your favorite thing about working here?

I get the chance to work with companies and people all over the world.  Learning to do business in Europe, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea and across the U.S. brings new challenges and fantastic people.  Every country/place is unique and I love trying to understand the motivations and customs of business in each country.  The more I know, the more I realize I don’t know. We have fabulous employees in each of these locations and learning from them is inspirational.  In addition to our international set of customers, think of the international make-up in our company.  We have employees from China, Vietnam, Japan, Russia, India, Korea, France, and even Texas.  At Cimetrix, we can learn so much about the world.

What do you think makes a great account manager and salesperson?

I think this has to do with walking in our customer’s shoes, not selling them something.  Most of our customers have been our business partners and friends for 10 years or longer.  As an account manager, you have to understand how to make your customers successful both professionally and personally.  The revenue comes to us with this attitude.  While the account manager may lead the charge, this thinking permeates the company which is why we have so many long-term customers.  Heck, we have customers that come join us as employees!

Do you have a favorite quote / saying? Why?

I don’t, but I do search out a new quote every day.  It makes me think.  It makes me laugh.  Once a month, I find one that really hits home and I send it off to family and friends.  Einstein had some good ones.

How do you deal with challenges that come up in your work life?

I actually like a good crisis.  It stops you in your tracks and makes you think about how you got there.  What process needs work, why did I make an error, and how can I remain calm and think through the options.  Don’t let emotions take control, do the right thing, and do it quickly. Easy to say, hard to do.  Challenges are such learning experiences.

What do you like to do in your free time?

I’m somewhat of a speed demon.  I like to do things that involve speed.  Full speed on ice hockey skates, snow skiing in and out of bounds, full bore across the wake on a slalom ski, corners on my motorcycle, and my right foot might be a bit heavy in the car.  Those are my adrenalin outlets. My calming time will find me in a national park, on a river with a fly rod, enjoying a cup of strong coffee in a kayak, or being a plumber or tiler.  What can I learn next?

What's the best thing that's happened to you in your time working at Cimetrix?

Being part of building a great company.  We have something really special here at Cimetrix.  It took a lot of work by our whole team over the last 25 years.  Being part of that will be with me forever.  And the best is yet to come. Priceless.

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