MOTOROLA BEGINNINGS

Initially assigned to design and develop a low-cost pager for the European fire and safety markets, this experience gave me a good understanding of Motorola’s standard methodology for developing, manufacturing and shipping their communication products. After successfully completing this project, a need emerged to reduce product development time by replacing much of the manual product testing with a software controlled automated test system. Since I was already familiar with the required product specifications and measurement techniques, I took on the challenge to develop Motorola’s first automated radio test system in South Florida.

HP BASIC PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE

The Motorola product development teams were heavily dependent upon Hewlett Packard test equipment to evaluate their engineering designs. Hewlett Packard also provided a procedural-type programming language that made operating and controlling their test equipment relatively easy. So it only made sense to use this programming language, HP Basic, as the software development tool for the new Florida Automated Test System.

PORTABLES

The initial design of the Florida Autotest System used International test specifications from Germany to evaluate radio receiver and transmitter performance. This was due to the fact that Germany was the first target market for current products under development in the International Development Group.

Once a radio product was deemed ready to ship, regulatory agencies in the targeted markets needed to grant their approval before sales contracts could be signed. So, another job responsibility was created where I would prepare data packages for product submissions and work with various agencies around the world to gain new Motorola product approvals. As the number of International markets increased, I developed additional software routines into the Florida Autotest System to incorporate product specifications for individual country requirements.

•    Created and expanded the Florida Autotest System capability to evaluate transmit and receive specifications over temperature and voltage extremes per individual country requirements.
•    Implemented hardware and software upgrades to enable automatic testing of portable radio channel selection and volume control settings using mechanical motors and electronic translators.
•    Supported Development Engineering Testing, Product Approval Package Submissions and Competitive Radio Evaluations.
•    Multiple portable radios approved in over 24 countries.

PAGING

The Motorola Paging Group began experiencing substantial growth in both domestic and foreign markets. With the relatively short product life of a pager, they required significant reduction in development time and offered me a position. I joined the Paging team and was asked to essentially take on the same responsibilities I had been performing with the Portables Group in supporting development engineers with their testing, upgrading paging specific Automated Test System capability, and working with International product approval agencies and test houses.

Multiple test stations were setup throughout the various Paging development labs, run by HP computers and networked by the Hewlett-Packard Unix system HP-UX. As time went on, development engineers began asking if I could develop test systems for them that would run on their desktop PC’s. That was my introduction to graphical programming languages, HP Vee by Hewlett-Packard and LabView by National Instruments.

•    To resolve product approval issues, traveled to and met with representatives of British Telecom, the Deutsche Bundespost, France Telecom, and countries Singapore, Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Also hosted a delegation from Russia who represented one of the largest product approval authorities in that country.
•    In a 3-year timeframe, 70 new pager products were shipped into over 60 markets worldwide for Motorola product approval and eventual sales.

CELLULAR

The rise in popularity of the cellular phone contributed greatly to the decline and eventual phase-out of Motorola Paging development. However, the demand was so great for new cellular phone products, Motorola’s Chicago-area Cellular Development teams could not keep up. Our site in Florida was then designated to assist in cellular phone development. My responsibilities again remained the same, assist development engineering in product evaluations with automated test stations and handle worldwide cellular product approvals for the facility.

The GSM Cellular test stations and HP-BASIC software routines had been created by the development team in Chicago and deployed to Motorola facilities around the world. Our site was allocated the financial means to replicate this test station and it became operational under my direction. As cellular development increased, I recommended and received approval for a second, third, and fourth test station valued at approximately $750,000 each.

•    Worked in Flensburg, Germany with the ADR (Advanced Digital Radio) Testing Service, a GSM International Cellular Telephone Safety and Compliance Agency, to gain approvals for several Motorola cellular products.
•    In order to understand a new cellular technology and develop test station software routines to evaluate its performance, attended a 3 day AMR (Adaptive MultiRate) GSM feature training session in Toulouse, France.

MANAGEMENT

Although my professional responsibilities were primarily technical in nature, I was also in a position to manage a number of associates throughout my time at Motorola. There were situations when the amount of test station and product approval work could not be accomplished by just one person, so additional personnel were assigned to help me out.

During my work in Portables, this initially included a new junior engineer and an electrical technician. This team eventually grew to a total of six, consisting of three engineers and three technicians.

While in the Paging group, one technician was assigned to me. Additionally, product approval managers for the Far East (located in Singapore) and Europe (located in Ireland) were hired to work under my direction.

In Cellular, one engineer and one technician reported directly to me and we all worked closely with Motorola test teams in Chicago and Toulouse, France.

•    Technical manager for test teams in Motorola Portables, Paging and Cellular Development Groups.
•    Product Approval Manager for Motorola Paging test teams in Europe and the Far East.