1. Silicon Valley Agile Development & Manufacturing Case Study Series
BESTRONICS & WOWCLOWD:
A Unique Product, An Aggressive Budget and A Lot of Uncertainty
How Early Stage Partnership with Agile Manufacturing Partners Achieved
Time-to-Market Goals to Develop a Highly Innovative Solution for Network Testing
Silicon Valley Regional Economic Development Initiative
WowClowd was built around a game-changing concept that could
transform network cable installation and testing from a “coffee
stained paper process” to a secure and cloud-based process en-
abled by a purpose-built, hand-held Bluetooth device.
Chris Gille, Operations VP for of WowClowd, describes his company
as software savvy and deeply experienced in the design and inte-
gration of cable systems. They had no experience however, in the
development and manufacturing of a physical device. With no viable
manufacturing options near their headquarters in Nebraska, Gille
opted to partner with Silicon Valley-based contract manufacturer
Bestronics at an unusually early stage, the idea and concept phase,
to help bring the WowClowd product to market.
“WowClowd has extensive entrepreneurial product development
experience,” said Gille. “We can identify customer needs, determine
how to solve them, validate them, and then field test to tweak and
refine a solution feature set. What we didn’t have was the ability to
understand how design decisions would impact manufacturing cost
or time trade-offs or add complexity to critical trade testing require-
ments.”
Gille explained that the product would require a particularly sophisti-
“Silicon Valley
offers unique access
to an extraordinary
breadth of
technology skills...
You can get the right
product to market in-
finitely faster.”
- Ron Menigoz, CTO
at Bestronics
cated, rugged design. “It’s a small form factor device housing expensive electronics that an operator may toss
in with a box of tools, or hang from a belt loop as he or she climbs a ladder in the course of their daily work.
This product needed to be able to take a beating.” Not only was the WowClowd product new to the market,
it required some unique components. One key element was highly sophisticated testers that would leverage
the power of smartphones and the cloud. To accomplish this effectively, the design specs called for a techni-
cal solution that did yet exist in the market.
Leveraging Silicon Valley’s Agile Development & Manufacturing Network
Bestronics quickly engaged industrial design company JDID product design + development and electronic
engineering company Ansync Labs at the design specification stage to collaborate on research and develop-
ment. These partners in turn brought in additional expertise, i.e. low volume injection molders, tooling shops,
etc. as needed. With the full concept to production development schedule in mind, Bestronics coordinated
collaboration between the engineering groups, external supply chain component providers and test partners
involved at each stage of the development process.

2. Silicon Valley Agile Development & Manufacturing Case Study Series
Silicon Valley Regional Economic Development Initiative
Gille contrasted the quicker time to market process he experienced through early collaboration with the Be-
stronics team with more typical manufacturing processes. “We didn’t move from design documentation to
quality testing to production to customer shipment, as usual. We went from concept to alpha to beta, then to
pre-production while getting and responding to feedback from customers throughout the process. We even
went through a couple of different board spins that were driven by functional changes we would prototype.” He
continued, “using the input of each partner right from the R&D phase, we could balance each feature decision
or customer input based on its impact to cost or time delays in manufacturing. This required exceptional com-
munication and fluidity between all team members.”
Jubal DeLong, Principal, JDID product design + development describes one such example. “WowClowd called
for a specification change at a later stage in the product development. Bestronics informed us that the part
would be difficult to get and might impact the production timeline. With this foreknowledge we were able to
swap out the difficult part for one that was more readily accessible, long before the product hit the assembly
line.” He described an additional cost-savings example that resulted from tight collaboration. “WowClowd
significantly increased its beta product quantity based on huge customer interest,” said DeLong. “We realized
that the volume difference made an alternate production option more cost efficient. I made a call and within 30
minutes had saved WowClowd five figures in beta production costs.”
Ansync provided electronic engineering feedback from concept stages as well, focusing on a means of pro-
ducing electronics that used low labor assembly along with the right mechanical strategy. Ansync has an SMT
line onsite. This capability enabled them to debug early stage prototypes on a live line while constantly com-
municating progress to Bestronics, in what Ansync CEO Sam Miller describes as a “seamless process.”
“The team used Agile methodology, working in sprints with short time iterations, smaller sets of deliverables,
quick feedback on the sprints and then immediate changes in response. Each decision involved the input of
ID and manufacturing. The tight collaboration resulted in a “one-pass implementation,” said Miller. The Wow-
Clowd tester electronics fit and performed perfectly in the model, the first time off the line.
To date, the WowClowd tester is in active production, although it is still iterating as the company receives
ongoing customer feedback. “Bestronics didn’t ask us for volume commitments or a timeline when we began
this project,” said Gille. “That immediate spirit of cooperation impressed us, as does their continued willingness
to re-kit our solution as necessary and in a very quick timeframe. Bestronics has done an extraordinary job of
project management within the confines of a tight budget and time to market pressure.“
“Innovation and Agile manufacturing go hand in hand,” said Ron Menigoz, Chief Technology Officer at Bestron-
ics. “Having been involved in multiple hardware startups as well as large OEMs where we pushed the technol-
ogy boundaries, I realize that no one company has all the answers. When you can leverage a network, immedi-
ately and accessibly, you gain options. And when you can cherry pick just the right team around a very specific
product, you become very nimble. This is important at the beginning of product development when so much is
unknown as well as at the very end of a product’s life when supply chains become spotty or volumes decrease.
The Silicon Valley offers unique access to an extraordinary breadth of technology skills, and significant value in
taking advantage of that network in the conception stages of new product design. You can get the right prod-
uct to market infinitely faster.”
Faster to Market, Cost Savings and “One-Pass Implementation”
Tight collaboration resulted in “one-pass implementation”;
WowClowd electronics performed perfectly, the first time off the line