INSTRUMENTED
SENSOR
TECHNOLOGY
Greg Hoshal, Founder/President
Instruments for unattended
measurement & recording of
dynamic environments (motion)
(Acceleration recording units)
Brief BIO: Instrumented Sensor Technology, Inc.
Okemos, MI
Year founded: 1987
Founder: Greg Hoshal
Nature of Business: Designs, develops, manufactures and sells portable, battery powered data recorders for a variety of mechanical measurements. Sensory-based systems for measuring shock, vibration, acceleration, strain, temperature & humidity. Also develops user interface software for recorder setup, data download, and time & frequency domain engineering analysis.
Products: Seven different data recorder models & accessories.
Two software products with five different modular functions.
Staff Size: 17 full time
3 part time (student interns)
Sales Territory: Worldwide
Miscellaneous Application Markets:
Aerospace-Satellites
Rocket Motors
Missiles
Spacecraft
Consumer Products - PCs
Home Electronics
HDDs
Railroads
Automotive - crash testing & recording
DOD - U.S. Navy
U.S. Army
Consulting Engineers
Amusement Ride Industry
In the past eleven years IST has sold over 2,000 data recording systems to 800+ customers in the U.S. and 18 foreign countries.
Some Tips on Succeeding as a Start-Up:
(1) Having the right product at the right time.
(2) Develop a business plan - market identification, sales strategy, sales and budget forecasts, projections, pricing, competitive analysis, etc.
(3) Acquire adequate start-up capital.
(4) Have a "Do or Die" work ethic for the first 2-3 years.
(5) Sound financial planning, fiscally very conservative.
(6) Build a team of talented employees.
(7) Network with other companies & businesses similar to yours.
(8) Good communications skills - verbal & written.
(9) Dumb luck
Rewards of Running your own Business
1 - Constant excitement - new product applications, new customers, new opportunities, new products.
2 - Financial rewards - virtually unlimited.
3 - Lots of travel - meeting new people, new companies, products, foreign countries, cultures, etc.
4 - Satisfaction of seeing a product go from initial concept to production and market.
5 - Satisfaction of solving customer's problems, and having customers who genuinely appreciate the capabilities of your products.
Some Challenges of Running your own Business
1 - Keeping the orders coming in every month
2 - Recruiting and retaining good employees
3 - Managing people
4 - Keeping new product development going
5 - Maintaining focus
6 - More possibilities for legal problems
Salient Technologies of IST Data Recorder Products:
- Recorders incorporate silicon-micromachined accelerometer sensors
- PLAs used for memory addressing logic and recording functions
- SRAM, PSRAM, DRAM & EEPROM memories
- Motorola 68HC11 and PIC microprocessors
- CMOS used throughout for minimal power consumption
Salient Operational Characteristics of IST Data Recorders
- Very small size & weight
- Very low power consumption è long field recording time under battery power
- High sampling rates from 3kHz to 15kHz/channel
- Large onboard memories for data storage, to 108MB
- "Turn-key" systems, complete with PC-based software for recorder setup, data download & analysis.