Bring us your concept, we will design a solution.

Since our start in 1988, MicroTools has successfully helped our clients with that important first step: Product Conceptualization. The client comes to us and says: “Here is the concept of what we want to do. What can we do with the technology that is available to get there?”

We have helped our customers:

Identify Customer Needs –

Because one of our core values involves long term relationships with our customers, we bring valuable help to the concept phase of the project development. We have learned over the years that identifying our client’s customer needs is not necessarily the same as:

• What we think the customer needs
• What the customer thinks they need
• What we are able to make
• What new technologies us engineers want to use

Set Initial Requirements –

At this stage, the client has a product concept and it is time to put it down on paper for others to see what this new product is all about. Often, engineers are not always gifted at documenting product requirements. Therefore, we not only provide good ideas to our customers and help them clarify their requirements, we make sure it is properly documented.

Identify risks and map out risk reduction plans –

So, the client has this great concept in response to their customer’s needs. We help them organize and document the product’s requirements. Are there any risk areas that may not be technically feasible? Time and time again, MicroTools has helped our clients focus resources on those highest risk areas before spending all their valuable time and expense on something that just cannot be done at this time. We do this with careful risk reduction analysis and carefully laid out project planning. Because we do most of our work fixed price, it should be obvious why this is so important to us.

Analyze competitive products –

At times, MicroTools does participate in analyzing competitive products. The technology expertise and quick learning curve of our engineers accurately identify the strong and weak points of your competitor’s products and recommend improvements for your product.

Identify key technologies –

With experience in numerous technologies available, MicroTools weighs advantages of each as a solution to the task and ways to reduce the risk. We are technology people; we live it; we breathe it; the kind of people that bore the rest of the world with our interests in all this technology. Do we know everything about the technologies available? Absolutely not! But we consistently provided our clients with support in this area.

MicroTools has years of experience delivering solid designs – both systems and software.

When creating new designs, we work hard to produce a design that will be:

• Reliable
• Re-usable
• Extendable
• Maintainable

When modifying existing systems, we attempt to avoid “re-inventing the wheel.” We are adept at making do with existing designs that are, let’s just say, less than perfect. We have also worked with some masterful designs that have awed us with their simplicity and flexibility. As consultants, it is important to know how to work with both.
We utilize Object Oriented design techniques and UML where applicable and do not slavishly apply the latest fad technique just because we attended a seminar on it. Hopefully, the industry has learned that all designs need not be Object Oriented. But many should. MicroTools brings years of experience to bear when attempting create the best design for your product.