In This Issue Company Corner Capability Focus Technology Focus Innovative Solutions News Flash Did you know? The Lilac Bloomsday Run is an annual timed road race in Spokane, WA, held on the first Sunday of every May since 1977. The course is 12 km (7.46 mi) long. The course starts in downtown Spokane and heads northwest along the far west end of town, passes by Mukogowa Ft. Wright Institute and Spokane Falls Community College before heading up Doomsday Hill and back downtown to the Spokane County Courthouse. Every finisher of the race receives a Bloomsday t-shirt. The Lilac Bloomsday Run has had over 40,000 participants every year since 1986. The Lilac Bloomsday Run has had over 40,000 participants every year since 1986. A field of 55,088 signed up for this year's Bloomsday Run. 50,661 crossed the finish line. Don Kardong, who founded the Bloomsday race, cites James Joyce's Ulysses as the inspiration for the name Bloomsday. Vist Us: Booth 1848 Did you know? Hoopfest is the biggest 3-on-3 street basketball tournament on the planet. That means over 6,700 teams, 3,000 volunteers, 200,000 players and fans, 428 courts spanning 40 downtown city blocks, and that's just on day one! Beyond basketball, though, Hoopfest is an outdoor festival chock full of concerts, shopping, food, and entertainment. Every year brings some thing new. We can't wait to see what 2010 will bring! Hoopfest is a place for players of all ages and abilities from all over the country to come together in pursuit of the ultimate goal: to become a Hoopfest Champion. It's where friends and families gather and cheer at the top of their lungs for their favorite team. It's the chance to see a college superstar, or your dad, hustle like he's in the final game of the NBA finals. It's a place for your seven-year-old to score her first basket. Did you know? Home of the Worlds ONLY Floating Green The Coeur d'Alene Resort Golf Course is nestled in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains on the shores of beautiful Lake Coeur d'Alene in North Idaho. Opened in 1991 to unprecedented reviews and awards, The Coeur d'Alene Resort Golf Course established itself as a premier destination golf course debuting as the #11 resort golf course in the nation, while unveiling an extraordinary #1 ranking in the category of "Beauty and Esthetics" by Golf Digest. Reason #9 your presentation stinks Diagnosis: You filled your slides with special effects and visual jim-cracks. Why you did it: You were afraid that the audience would find you boring. What resulted: Your audience watched the pretty pictures and missed what you were saying. How to fix it: Use the minimum visuals that you need to tell the story. Follow Us: Issue: Volume II, Issue 2 May 2010 Company Corner A History of Growth - Building Expansion Completed Jacqueline Ram PhD, Vice President New Business and Strategy Advanced Input Systems will officially start manufacturing keyboards, control panels, and other complex user-interface assemblies in our newly expanded 140,000 sq. ft. facility this month. The 55,000 sq. ft. addition provides much needed space to meet the growing business of manufacturing complex UI assemblies for medical, defense/military, industrial, and data acquisition management equipment. Read More Capability Focus Building Expansion Advantages Mike Mason, Director of Operations We've nearly completed the move into expansion. This space will support an immediate need for production expansion and prepare us for future capacity estimates. An additional benefit is the elimination of our off-site storage facility allowing us to store all material under one roof. This greatly improves our ability to organize materials long term and improve our delivery efficiency to production areas. Each production department will have approximately 30% more floor space to operate in once they have completed their respective moves. This immediate increase in space significantly improves every production workers' ability to safely maneuver around their work areas, improves material flow, and improves departmental organization of equipment and product resident in all areas. Advanced Input and Esterline expect continued growth so we've allocated 10,000 square feet for future business needs. As we expanded the facility to meet production needs, we also took the opportunity to expand our prototyping capabilities. We purchased machining assets that enable us to internally manufacture all domestic elastomer tooling along with machining any necessary prototype and/or production tooling. A dedicated paint booth operation space has also been built for future elastomer decoration. Please join me as we look forward to the coming months and completing the expansion tasks to benefit our employees and customers. Technology Focus ABS Printing Enhances Design Results Brian Snow, Vice President Engineering Rapid prototyping is a term used to describe methods of fabricating parts that simulate certain features of a real part. Generally some elements of a rapid prototype part are not as high of quality, tolerance or strength when compared to a 'production' part. The advantage of rapid prototyping is that the speed and cost is usually significantly improved. Advanced Input Systems uses a number of rapid prototyping processes; one of the more recent enhancements is the installation of an ABS printer. This is a machine that dispenses drops of ABS (a specific type of plastic) that are deposited in a manner much like that of an ink jet printer. The plastic solidifies quickly and the 'printer' builds up layer after layer of plastic until a finished part emerges. The resulting part is dimensionally and structurally very similar to a production fabricated plastic part. Depending on how the part is constructed in the machine, small layers/lines are apparent between the solidified drops of plastic. The parts that are produced in the ABS printer can be fabricated in as little as 3-4 hours for small parts. There is no tooling to design, no core and cavity to define and no fixtures to create. The engineer simply exports the 3D CAD model to the printer and the machine does the rest. So what's so great about rapid prototyping? By utilizing rapid prototyping techniques, engineers are able to actually touch and feel parts. This allows subjective (look/feel) as well as objective (measured size, mechanical fit, and strength) to be evaluated much earlier in a project than traditional approaches. Engineers are free to try multiple variations of a design, quickly testing and discarding inferior solutions and converging on better solutions. In many cases, rapid prototyped parts become part of initial models and concepts delivered to the customer. This improvement in time to market is vital to staying ahead of the competition. Advanced Input Systems uses ABS printing and a host of other rapid prototyping techniques to improve speed and reduce risk. Contact us and take advantage of thirty years of user interface design and manufacturing expertise! Innovative Solutions Technology: Configurable OLED Button panel Challenge: Provide the Gaming industry a solution for re-legendable buttons in a server-based gaming environment allowing button content to be changed "on-the-fly" by the host system. Solution: A single panel containing multiple buttons with integrated OLED displays that interface with the host system via single power and USB connections. Application: Casino Gaming Bring your usability, technology, and environmental challenge to Advanced Input Systems, we'll provide an innovative solution to your application requirements. News Flash BELLEVUE, WA--(Marketwire - April 15, 2010) - Esterline Corporation, (NYSE: ESL) (www.esterline.com), a leading specialty manufacturer serving the aerospace and defense markets, today announced the promotion of Dennis Staver to President of its Interface Technologies platform, which includes three human-machine interface companies. He'll also serve as direct President for one of those companies, Esterline Advanced Input Systems, based in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Read More Advanced Input Systems is hosting a Grand Opening celebration of our new building expansion in Coeur d'Alene, ID on Wednesday June 30, 2010. Contact us if you would like to attend. Want more news? Subscribe to our newsfeed. Medigenic Mouse Sale Mothers Day and Fathers Day sale. From May 9th through June 20th the Medigenic Mouse is on sale. List Price: $69.00 Sale Price:* $48.00 *Call us at (800) 444-5923 X 1222 or contact us for details. A Advanced Input Systems operates a world-class, ISO 9001:2008 certified facility that incorporates a full service design to manufacture methodology for its customers. Specializing in custom control panels, input systems and application specific keyboard solutions, Advanced Input System's diverse customer base includes major medical, industrial, defense and gaming industry OEM's worldwide. If you would like more information about any of the solutions or capabilities featured in this Newsletter please contact us at (800) 444-5923 x1383; e-mail: ais.sales@esterline.com, Skype: ais.sales