How Avench’s Methodology Creates Successful Embedded Systems

Look around and you should find some smart communicating device. As the world of IoT propels us to an era of automated processing, the discussion can’t be accomplished without mentioning the Embedded systems that work from behind and do the core driving of the application. While the industry marches to $116.2M USD by 2025, enterprises have woken up to capitalize upon the propelling industry; however, only service providers have shown steady progress.

Avench Systems has always been devoted to Embedded Systems development. It’s a tough space and not many service providers dare to lock horns with the complexity involved. Avench, however, has always outperformed itself and in less than a decade’s (7 years) time has earned a reputation. The company is one of the fastest-growing Embedded Systems providers in the world and has an interesting take on development. As a full-stack consulting company, Avench Systems follows a strategic approach to planning the developments and the delivery model.

Here’s a quick run through the differences that make Avench Systems a winner in its league.

1. Follows Agile methodology

Most Embedded Systems projects follow a structured process. What’s unique about Avench is the standard Agile methodology that works at the component level across hardware and software builds. Beginning from the engagement model to post-delivery support, the approach eliminates redundancies and fastens the time to market. Besides predictable costing and highly improvised quality, Avench’s roadmap to developing market-ready Embedded Systems benefits from stakeholder’s participation that adds business value and assures utmost transparency of the process.

Here’s a quick run through the different milestones that make up the end-to-end agile process –

The Idea Feasibility

The business idea in mind is taken to paper wherein its feasibility with a number of metrics is evaluated. Starting with the market gap that the product resolves, a thorough study of the available solutions is done and their SWOT analysis performed. This provides a detailed understanding of the key available opportunities that the product can benefit from.

Next, the feasibility of the idea is done as per the capital, time-to-market deadlines, stakeholder expectations, regulatory compliance and the readiness of the available resources. Furthermore, the technical feasibility evaluates the idea as per the available technology across Firmware systems, BSP & Middleware, Linux, PCB and others.

Engagement

Since Embedded Systems include significant participation from hardware, firmware and software stakeholders, solution locking is a comprehensive step here. In the scoping phase, all participants from different disciplines are involved while writing the Statement-of-Work. This is crucial because the State-of-Work document includes the solution architecture diagram of the approved solution followed by the digital circuit representation and other design specs.

Therefore, any mismatch in the commitment could complicate product development. The engagement phase details all components to be used, the dependencies on the customer, the number of resources required.

Industrial Design

Industrial designing does a mock representation of the product through 3D modeling. This further leads to enclosure prototyping, evaluation against the design standards in the digital format and the compliance of the physical output with external conditions. Since the objective of this phase is to prepare a reference model for mass production, Avench uses enterprise-grade tools such as Autodesk Fusion 360, MeshLab and TinkerCAD.

Hardware design

Next comes the core of developing embedded systems – hardware designing. This is the longest and most important part of the process. Avench’s USP lies with the detailing of the schematic block diagram that is used as a reference for component selection for the circuit. With vast experience across a range of products, they have mastered hardware designing. The PCB Layout designing and Gerber generation is performed by expert professionals. This helps in faultless PCB fabrication and a smoother final assembly of the components. Ultimately the board bring-up testing and testing is done.

Software development

Post designing the hardware architecture of the product, we move to software designing. This step includes high-level architecture, processor and peripherals selection, Programming approach finalization, System software development, Firmware development, Application development, Code optimization, and Testing.

As most embedded systems are finding their applications in IoT projects today, software development is a key area. Following the high-level architecture locked in the scoping document, the software application development is majorly divided into the embedded systems development and the UI. The embedded systems drive the core business logic along with the firmware development. Using standard code optimization practices, testing and deployment are performed.

2. Follows an optimization strategy

Regardless of software or hardware systems under development, optimization is a key phase that filters the inconsistencies in the desired application. For embedded systems that already have a greater responsibility of driving complex IoT networks comprising of both hardware and software apps, optimizing them at every level is an imperative practice. And without the right set of tools, this can’t be achieved. At Avench, the developers are equipped with industry grade tools to accurately predict the behavior of the system under development. Additionally, the motive of optimizing embedded systems is to reduce the size of the code so that compact yet faster applications could be built.

For example, Somnium DRT is an optimization tool that is used to assure a leaner code while making the overall system perform faster. Moreover, various other toolchains or standalone tools are deployed to perform the optimization. Depending upon the scale of the application, Avench performs deep testing to decide upon whether commercial or open-source compilers should be used.

As far as challenges are concerned, the absence of a milestone map in system optimization could put various developments to risk enterprises must take note of. In fact, a set target plan is one of the leading reasons why Avench has been able to achieve implementation success. In order to ensure the smallest of improvements in the system, every optimization pass is provided with more time to go deeper into the system.

However, the scope of improvement is unlimited and developers must know when to stop. This is important because optimization without a strategy of execution could take up to weeks working on a system that may not need any refinement. At Avench, the teams follow a set target level before the beginning of every optimization phase. This clearly defines the depth sufficient for the system. Besides assuring a high performing system, well-planned optimization assures time to progress and time to market.

3. Flexible Engagement Models

Avench Systems has grown steadily all over the map and a completely customer friendly engagement strategy should be credited. As a fast-growing embedded system Development Company, Avench Systems has multiple models to choose from such as the Turnkey Model, Full-Time-Equivalent Model (FTE), Offshore Development Model (ODC) and Time & Material Model. Based upon the type of consultation, the budget and the timelines agreed upon, an exclusive engagement model strategy is curated for every project. This has helped the company expand its reach to other markets and emerge as a reputed entity in the business. Moreover, the company has been able to scale its list of services and take up complex requirements in the embedded systems consulting space. Over the years, the company has actualized projects that most service providers shy away from.

Focus on making smaller and faster systems

The fate of Embedded Systems is tied to the scope of the IoT markets. Therefore, most Embedded Systems projects at Avench are complex builds that comprise multiple hardware and software elements. Despite such intricacy of the build, Avench hasn’t moved away from making smaller and faster systems. Therefore, the focus on faster loading times within a compact size is the key differentiator here. Given vast experience in serving a breadth of sectors such as healthcare, manufacturing and automobile, Avench Systems look forward to.