Since we started the countdown to the Engineered Software 30th Anniversary, I have gotten many requests to describe the development of some of our programs. The subject of this blog is a short review of the creation of PUMP-FLO.
It was after an upgrade of our PIPE-FLO / NET-FLO programs (footnote 1) (in DOS) that we started calling our customers, asking how they used the software. The main response was, it helps in calculating the design point needed for centrifugal pump selection. After the 5th or 6th such call we had a good idea that our next program should help in the selection and evaluation of centrifugal pumps.
In 1985, we started program development and in two months, PUMP-FLO was finished and became the fifth in our FLO-SERIES (footnote 2) of piping software. This first version was a DOS program where the user entered the pump performance data, and the program calculated the power requirement and the Net Positive Suction Head available. In addition the impeller diameter and speed could be adjusted and the program calculated the new pump performance data.
There were two problems with that first version preventing wide use of PUMP-FLO: first, it did not display a pump curve, and second the user had to manually enter the pump data. There were provisions in the program so manufacturers could supply their data in electronic pump catalogs for use by the program. We set out working with pump manufacturers to create their electronic pump catalogs; we offered to do it free if they would make the data available. I got a list of 80 centrifugal pump manufacturers sent out mailing to all and got zero takers.
In 1987, I was a panelist at the Society of Plumbing Engineers session discussing the availability of engineering software for piping calculations. Tim Smith, from TACO Pumps was also a panelist, and was demonstrating their new pump selection program. The user entered a design point and the program search through the TACO catalog 
and presented a list of pumps meeting their needs. It could display the pump curve on an IBM Color Graphics Adapter (CGA), or the Hercules Graphic Card (HGC).In talking with Tim he said the majority of the development work was writing the device drivers for the two graphics cards, and the Epson MX-80 dot matrix printer. After seeing this I knew PUMP-FLO had to display a pump curve, but we didn't want to have to write device drivers for every new monitor and printer.
In 1988 we were developing an AutoCAD interface to our NET-FLO program and I needed a mouse pointing device. The mouse I purchased was bundled with Microsoft Windows Version 1. After using the mouse with AutoCAD and really enjoyed the ease of use a mouse pointing device for CAD applications.
During that time period Microsoft had a strong marketing push saying program’s written using their Windows environment did not have to write their own device drivers, Windows took care of that for you. I realized that if we made PUMP-FLO a Windows application we could display and print pump curve without the hassle of writing device drivers.
In 1988 we decided to make PUMP-FLO a Windows application, now all we needed was a launch customer. Once again I fired off letters to 80 manufacturers stating what we could do for them, and then waited. This time we got 1 response from Aurora Pumps in North Aurora Illinois. It seemed their sales people were getting asked by their customers when they were going to have a pump selection program like Taco.
We showed them an example of our DOS version of PUMP-FLO; they were interested but said their program needed to display and print the pump curve. I then showed them a mockup of what a Windows based pump selection program would look like (developed using MS Paint) and saying it could support all available graphical displays, printers, plotters, and pointing devices. I was giving them such a sales job I sounded like I was working for Microsoft.The discussions continued, they sent one of their sales engineers to our office to discuss what the program needed, then asked us for a proposal. We gave them a rather optimistic schedule for delivering the program, and they said we had a deal if we could chop two months off the schedule so the program would be ready for their annual sales meeting in early February.
At the time, we thought the money was good, and in June 1988, we signed the deal. After signing the contract, Carolyn Popp (the other founding principal at Engineered Software), signed up for a two day C programming class, and a three day Windows developers course.
After attending the C class, she said it was just another language and should have no problem picking up the language. The next week she went to the three-day Windows programming class. The instructor was one of the original Windows developers, and many of attendees in the class were Microsoft employees learning how to support and write their application tools. She came back saying Windows was much harder than estimated, and was concerned about our 6 month schedule. Yet, in a couple of weeks, she was able to get her program to compile and display a crude menu, so she felt a little better.
Aurora had approximately 600 individual pump curves that needed to be entered into their electronic catalog. I was the lead on this effort. It took approximately 90 minutes to enter a pump curve into the catalog, and with 600 curves to enter I quickly realized additional help was needed. Enter the interns, we hired two drafting interns from a local technical school and started creating the catalog. While entering the pump curves we streamlined the process and cut the time to 60 minutes per pumps.
To meet our schedule both Carolyn and I were working 12 hour days, 6 days a week, on Sunday we cut our day down to just 8 hours.
By September, the catalog was being built, and the program’s menu structure was established. Carolyn was working on the pump selection engine and displaying the selection list on the screen. Aurora was having a sales manager meeting that month and they wanted us to show what we have accomplished to date and how the program would work.
Carolyn was getting the program together so I could practice my demonstration before heading off to Aurora. I heard a blood-curdling scream coming from her office saying, "The program doesn’t work anymore!" She tried to recreate what she was doing, but she couldn’t get the program working again. By this time, it was after midnight and I needed to get some sleep before my flight to Aurora at 6 later that morning. She stayed at the office and said to stop in the office prior to going to the airport. At 6:00 am the next day I saw a single disk on the desk, a mouse on top of the disk and a note saying “It works. YOU MUST USE THE MOUSE, whatever you do, don’t use the keyboard.”When I arrived in Chicago, Aurora met me at the airport with a town car and took me to their offices for the demonstration. I had no idea why the program crashed the previous day, I use only the mouse and everything worked OK. Since we had not completed the graphing function of the program they were treated to an MS Paint generated sample graph window. They liked what they saw, then re-enforced the need to meet the schedule because the program was the highlight of their meeting. They then thanked me for coming and I was on my way.
By mid-January 1989 after spending hundreds of additional hours developing and testing the program, and entering and checking their pump performance data we had a working program. At their February 1989 sales meeting, we demonstrated their pump selection program called ESCAPE (Engineer’s Selection & Computer Aided Pump Evaluation).After demonstrating the program at the keynote meeting, we got a standing ovation. There were plenty of handshakes and back pats to go around and everyone was all smiles.
That afternoon we had to train over 100 sales people on how to use ESCAPE. We had four, one hour familiarization classes with 25 attendees per class. We had everyone go through a pump selection and evaluation and it was amazing how easy they were all able to pick up the program.
When the last class was finished at 4:00 PM, we still had a crowd of 30 to 50 sales people waiting to use the program to select pumps for their customers. Finally, at 6:00 PM we were exhausted and had to lock up the computer room. At the happy hour with an open bar, (after all it was a sales meeting), we were introduced to the President of Aurora Pump. He congratulated us on ESCAPE and thanked us for saving him so much money. Since the program had not yet been released, I ask how we saved them so much money. He said normally the sales people continued their discussions at the open bar, and that year’s bar bill was $10,000 less than previous years because so many of the sales people were using the program.
Once the Aurora ESCAPE program was completed and launched, we started working on our PUMP-FLO program. We started working with other pump manufacturers to create electronic pump catalogs for their products. In the next blog I will be talking about the trials and tribulations of creating pump catalogs for use with PUMP-FLO.
Do you have any questions for me? 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!
Footnotes
1. Prior to the release of our windows version of PIPE-FLO 4, the functionally of our piping simulation software was broken into the PIPE-FLO and NET-FLO programs. The DOS version of PIPE-FLO was used to design single pipelines and save the designed pipelines into a pipeline database. Using NET-FLO our hydraulic network analysis program; people would build a network by connecting the individual pipelines from the pipeline database into a total system complete with pressure sources, pumps, components, controls and demands. The reason this was done was that in the early days of microcomputers (even prior to DOS) programs were limited to 64 kilobytes of both memory and program space.
With the release of Microsoft Windows version 1 with its improved memory management and larger addressable memory we were able to combine PIPE-FLO and NET-FLO into a single program called PIPE-FLO Professional. Back to top
2. Prior to the release of Microsoft Windows, we had separate programs to handle various functions needed for piping system design. We called our group of products The FLO-SERIES. PIPE-FLO was used to design or enter individual pipelines into a pipeline database. All the other programs in the FLO-SERIES could read design information from the pipeline database. Our SYS-FLO program calculated how a system of multiple pipes and pumps in series would operate. Our NET-FLO program was for multiple looped networks.
We also had utility programs that could run as a standalone program or read pipeline design data from the database. This program included ORI-FLO for flow meters, PUMP-FLO, CON-FLO for control valve selection, INS-FLO from calculating insulation thickness and FLO-MANAGER. We marketed these programs as The FLO-SERIES. Back to top
1. Prior to the release of our windows version of PIPE-FLO 4, the functionally of our piping simulation software was broken into the PIPE-FLO and NET-FLO programs. The DOS version of PIPE-FLO was used to design single pipelines and save the designed pipelines into a pipeline database. Using NET-FLO our hydraulic network analysis program; people would build a network by connecting the individual pipelines from the pipeline database into a total system complete with pressure sources, pumps, components, controls and demands. The reason this was done was that in the early days of microcomputers (even prior to DOS) programs were limited to 64 kilobytes of both memory and program space.
With the release of Microsoft Windows version 1 with its improved memory management and larger addressable memory we were able to combine PIPE-FLO and NET-FLO into a single program called PIPE-FLO Professional. Back to top
2. Prior to the release of Microsoft Windows, we had separate programs to handle various functions needed for piping system design. We called our group of products The FLO-SERIES. PIPE-FLO was used to design or enter individual pipelines into a pipeline database. All the other programs in the FLO-SERIES could read design information from the pipeline database. Our SYS-FLO program calculated how a system of multiple pipes and pumps in series would operate. Our NET-FLO program was for multiple looped networks.
We also had utility programs that could run as a standalone program or read pipeline design data from the database. This program included ORI-FLO for flow meters, PUMP-FLO, CON-FLO for control valve selection, INS-FLO from calculating insulation thickness and FLO-MANAGER. We marketed these programs as The FLO-SERIES. Back to top
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