Thirty Years of Providing a Clear Picture

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I always like to break a process, list, or ideas down into the fewest number of items, three is ideal. I can easily remember three items, but anything more and I need to write it down.

Creating a list is much more difficult that remembering a short list:

• First you must find paper and pencil to create the list.


• Second you must remember where you put the list.

• Third you must refer to your list when making your points.


• Forth well I can’t seem to remember now, but it was important.

You also must think of your intended audience that is receiving your message. For your ideas to be meaningful, they must be remembered. When I listen, by the time someone is on the second point my mind starts wandering. After their forth idea, I find myself wondering where I put my list of items I needed to pick up after work.

The other day I was in a sales and marketing meeting and mentioned that Engineered Software’s 30-year anniversary is April 3^rd 2012. I then asked the group why they thought we were able to make it as a company to this major milestone. They started listing a variety of items, but Dennis Worrell, our sales manager said we need to keep the list to no more than three items so people will remember.

After the intro you probably though that I came up with the idea myself, that’s why I always like to have smart people on my team to help make us look good.

So here is the list of things that we have been doing for the last thirty years to make our company grow:

1. Created a sustainable company


2. Created products that can be used by a wide variety of people, not just for engineers


3. Play well with others

I’ll be expanding on the items in this blog, and will be covering highlights and providing additional details during our upcoming 30th anniversary year.

Create a sustainable company

From the beginning, our goal was to create a company that can grow to best meet the needs of our customers. We listen to our customers and they said they wanted products that are easy to use, reliable, and helped them better understand how their systems worked.

• Make the programs easier to use. We were an early adopter of Microsoft^® Windows^® with our 1989 release of PUMP-FLO™. It ran using the Windows 1 operating environment.


• We have always had a written test plan for our software products. This ensures we have documented acceptance criteria, and the completed software worked as designed.


• In 1987, we got our first request for product training. Over the years, our customers have helped us progress our training offerings to more than just software. Now we have courses on piping system basics, pump operation and maintenance, and improving system profitability.

Created products that are not just for engineers

I am an engineer and couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else. When we started the company, our goal was to provide software tools for engineers. Our first PIPE-FLO^® customers were EPC firms (Engineering, Procurement and Construction).

After a short time, we started selling to owners and operators of piping systems as well. They liked how PIPE-FLO provides them with a clear picture of how their systems were operating, and we liked how they helped us expand our business. Ease of use was high on their list so we strove to make our programs more meaningful to these customers. PIPE-FLO is used to troubleshoot maintenance problems, help operations determine how their plant operates under off-normal conditions, and save the utilities group on energy costs.

In the late 1980s we released PUMP-FLO, our centrifugal pump selection and evaluation program.

Three months after releasing the program, a major pump manufacturer purchased copies for every one of their sales staff. It seems they were using PUMP-FLO to help our PIPE-FLO customers select the best pump for their applications. This leads us to the third key to success, “Play well with others.”

Play well with others

One thing we discovered in the first 30 years of business is that it takes a diverse group of people to run any business. We always strive to learn more about our customer’s workflow and businesses processes. As a result, we discovered that if we could play well with others we were able to offer greater value. As mom always said if you want to play, you need to communicate. Here are a few pioneering examples of how we make our applications play well with others:

• One of the early communication features of Microsoft® Windows was Dynamic Data Exchange or DDE. We incorporated DDE into PUMP-FLO and published our user codes so others could gain access to input data and program results. This allows pump manufacturers to develop and integrate configuration and pricing programs, dimension drawing programs, and document management program seamlessly with our PUMP-FLO.


• Many of our PIPE-FLO customers are hard-core spreadsheet users and asked if PIPE-FLO can send results to their Excel® spreadsheets. We did one better, we made it so PIPE-FLO can provide two-way communications with Excel. Now our customers are writing customized datasheets under Excel and automatically importing design data directly from PIPE-FLO. Others are writing spreadsheets that help them optimize their initial system design.

By developing an easy to use tool that meets the needs of many different groups and allowing our products to play well with others, we have been able to grow and prosper for 30 years.

I would love it if you left a comment or even sent me an email to blogger @ eng-software.com. Also, we are currently welcoming guest bloggers. If you are interested, just send me a message about becoming a guest blogger, and what you would like to write about. Thanks for reading!