Volume 1, Issue 20

Four months since our last newsletter and the dynamics of the world have changed...literally turned upside down.

Four months ago, we were dealing with hyper inflation at the commodity level due to speculation. The housing bubble had burst in specific regions of the country, and was beginning to gain national attention. And, the US dollar was at historic lows.

Four months later, we are dealing with a deflationary environment, not to mention a credit crisis of world wide impact that has literally frozen new lending. Now the hot words are "toxic assets". The liquidity that has been added to the system speaks of future out of control inflation and devaluation of the major world currencies...meaning a return to hyper inflation, this time as a result of an overreaction to the credit problem.

Time will tell if that will happen.

Four months ago we were promoting to our potential customers outside of America a product that was less expensive due to the historic low of the US dollar in relation to other currencies.

Four months later, those historic lows have vanished.

Are we out of ideas on how to save money and improve your product and efficiency in this challenging yet not impossible economy?

Certainly not!!!

In a time when you have uncertainty, people and companies stop spending, stop investing, thus creating an even worse economy. Now should be the time when we look at how we can improve, by reducing. Don't reduce on the necessities, but on the non-essentials. This can be said for your products and how they are being manufactured.

How can you do more with less?

How can you improve the efficiency of your work force, while at the same time retaining your work force?

I cannot speak to the things such as healthcare costs and taxes because we have to deal with those also. But, rather to the areas that Entertron may be able to help you.

Part of the inspiration for this newsletter is a result of reviewing some of the new PLC offerings that have recently been introduced.

They are very inexpensive, somewhat powerful, yet less industrial.

My first reaction was, how are we going to compete against that price?

After a night of sleeping on it and letting my mind respond, I am rather surprised at just how much less industrial these new offerings are becoming.

The new offering from Automation Direct offers a base unit for under $100, but with such minimal current capabilities (100 mA transistor and 1 amp relay) that you will most certainly need to add hardware for the controller to handle your devices.

In this case, smaller is not better.

PLCs are supposed to be industrial...shouldn't they be able to handle a decent industrial load?

Does it truly make sense in the industrial world to work with a product that is cheap, only to have to add more to it, so you can truly work with it? That cheap price, just got a whole lot less cheap.

For many years, we have emphasized our "much higher than industry standard" ratings for our controllers, both relay and solid state. With our higher ratings, you should require less in the way of additional components for your panel. Therefore, one way to reduce your cost out of your panel is to eliminate all the additional components that are redundant, because your controller is not designed with sufficient industrial ratings.

By reducing additional components, you will also reduce your labor costs in that there is less to wire. With less components, your labor force can actually produce more...therefore, improved efficiency.

With our higher ratings, we have also provided a much longer warranty then any other controls manufacturer in the industry...even the giants of the industry.

For many years we have also emphasized our flexibility, unlike the what you see is what you get approach from many of our competitors. This flexibility that we talk about is evident in many forms:

1. The ability to customize standard products for specific requirements

2. The ability to provide mixed I/O solutions in one platform

3. The ability to program your controllers at the factory, eliminating additional hardware and time.

4. Our program development service whereby we have worked on many applications, transcending many industries, thus providing you with a broad range of knowledge and experience.

Another area that you can look at, in saving costs...primarily the hidden costs, are your annual software costs for site / run licenses. Some companies charge per license. This will add up quickly if you have a large installed base, and is sure to hurt your operating margins.

Why not consider a partnership with a company that does not charge you yearly for updates of software, support, or service? Free software with no limit to the number of PCs we allow our software to be installed. Because of this, many students, learning institutions and training companies are using our software and controllers. They can have software for the lab, and software for their student's home PCs or laptops.

Our controllers will not be the least expensive on the market, but they will probably be more industrial then what you are currently using. By using something that can handle more, you will eliminate additional component costs.

Through the years, both in past newsletters and content found on our web site, we have provided you with what we call "The Entertron Advantage", ways in which working with Entertron can benefit your company, as well as your customers. Even in this challenging time, Entertron can still be of benefit.

Feel free to contact us to discuss your needs and how we can make you more competitive in a truly challenging environment. We are not talking competition from next door, but from all over the world.

CLOSING NOTES

Several months ago we created a web link page for those who were interested in improving their Google page ranking (and ours) by linking to our site and in turn we would provide a link to their site with a brief description of their company.

We would like to offer this benefit again to our email list. Here is a link to review the page that I am talking about.(Web Links) You can see who already is participating.

If you are interested in participating in our web link program, simply send us the web link that you have created on your web site and in turn, Entertron will add you to our list.

In this manner, we can help each other and thus allow this tide to raise both of our ships in the rankings.

If you have missed an issue of Entertron Intelligence, not to fear, you can view past issues on our web site.

Any general questions, not related to one of our subjects can be emailed to us at plcs@entertron.com and in the subject area type in "entertron intelligence question"

If you decide that you do not want to receive our monthly newsletter, email us at plcs@entertron.com and in the subject area type "please remove from list" and we will honor your request.