How do I outsource software development
Outsourcing software design and development has become a global trend in today’s fast-paced market. The market size of IT outsourcing has been estimated to be worth $66.52 billion in 2019. 59% of companies have resorted to outsourcing software development as a means of cutting expenses and approximately half of the companies based in the United States have resorted to software outsourcing practice at least once, for some reason. In the dynamic technology market, the local talent pool often seems to hit the roof as the race for churning the best of technology keeps pacing up. Thus, companies often have to reach out and look for global talent across the world. As a software development project takes a considerable amount of time and money, an organization often falls short of required time, manpower & money. This is where assistance from an experienced professional or a dedicated outsourcing firm comes into play. Assuming that your company has decided to finally outsource software development and considering how there are a plethora of software developers these days, finding a top-notch software development outsourcing company that meets your project requirements becomes increasingly more difficult. But be attentive, as the quality of your product depends upon the vendor you choose to work with. Normally, you would want the outsourcing partner to leverage their experience and set up a platform for the smooth integration of services. However, you being the owner/caretaker, must leave no stones unturned to ensure you have outsourced your work to the right party. Let us go through a step-by-step process that elaborates how to outsource software development projects carefully and effectively: Define Objectives and final goal A famous quote says “a person without an aim is like a ship without a rudder”. Here, in this case, the person is your product and the aim is the outcome the way you wanted it to be. Your product will not take off or crashland in the middle if you do not set your goal from the get-go and define a pathway to achieve that. This is a highly important stage where proper communication is required within your own company first and then with the external partner to present a clear blueprint of how this is going to be. Look out for the best firms for outsourcing and make a list To make sure you work with the best, sort out and make a list of possible outsourcing partners whom you see fit the role on a glance. Don’t just stop with the local vendors but if possible, reach out and research specific countries that have a good outsourcing culture. Some good choices these days include Ukraine, Hungary, South Korea, China, and India. Note down the particulars regarding how much do the software developers charge in those countries per hour, the time difference between your location and theirs, the legal procedures in stipulated for making contract and the location of agency or developer to ensure smooth communication. Research the best local software development outsourcing companies Once you have a list of five to six agencies, start researching each company. Here are some of the factors you need to focus on while researching: Contact Offshore software development agencies about your project Now in the next step, reach out to the companies you have previously reviewed and shortlisted. At this stage, it is essential to communicate your product goals and requirements with the utmost clarity to ensure that you and the outsource software development agency are on the same wavelength. Take this time to share ideas and ask as many questions as possible. Select the best software development firm to outsource When an agency doesn’t respond to your queries for a week or longer, it is a sign of an unreliable partner. What you need is a prompt response from someone, especially when there time difference between you. One more fact, a “yes” and “yes we can” answer to every question should turn on the alert button in your mind. Nothing is perfect and no one knows everything. That is a sign of over-confidence, not truthfulness. After all, trust is the key.Once you have finalized your choice, based on research and interviews you’ve conducted, put your agreement to paper (or an electronic one). Here are a few documents you would want the outsourced to sign before taking off with project: To outsource or not to outsource software development? only you can answer that question after a careful assessment of your company’s needs, manpower, budget, and a few other things. The choice is not that easy to make and you have to consider a lot of factors before you do.
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Issues in CAD Software – User’s perspective
5 Factors to consider while choosing a CAD platform Choosing a CAD platform can be a very difficult decision for any organization. Depending on the size of the organization it could be a very crucial decision because it is “sticky decision” and can not be changed easily in the future. So the decision should be taken considering a variety of factors. This document discusses some of these factors in detail. In a recent survey conducted by an eminent website, 230 product development professionals were asked questions regarding their level of satisfaction with CAD software. The survey intended to gather individual experiences of CAD users, turn them into informative insights and churn out common issues faced by design teams et al. The common issues were grouped under specific causes and in a total, four major issues were drawn out. Suitability of CAD software The most important aspect perhaps is the suitability of the CAD system for a particular organization. It is always a good idea to list out all the workflows, representative parts, any special processes, etc. Then a benchmark study should be conducted to assess the suitability of different CAD software against the checklist. One can even rate different software on each of the parameters. Software Ecosystem This is an external factor but an important one. Suppose you need to work with a lot of vendors then one has to consider that aspect. Would my vendor be able to provide me data in my format? On the other hand, your customers may force you to provide data in a specific CAD format.The availability of trained resources is also an important consideration to ensure that you can attract and retain talent for your business needs. The learning curve for CAD software When a new CAD package is introduced, the amount of time taken for the users to learn the new features is critical to how precisely and quickly design teams can bring their ideas to life.Although companies provide specific, coherent, and comprehensive training regarding new CAD software, it’s not enough of course, as the user also has to familiarize themselves with the interface of the new CAD package. Needless to say, the time consumed in this regard has caused quite a bit of inconvenience. Interoperability Importing and exporting files correctly shouldn’t be a hassle in general. However, this issue stood in the second place as CAD users found importing/exporting or interoperability quite the headache. The primary problem that CAD users face while importing and exporting files, is that the 3D model loses features—if it has no parameters, it has no intelligence—and therefore it is no longer parametric. Sometimes the object is incomplete or just a partial translation, which means the surfaces are missing. The quick emergence of varied CAD software has led designers to democratize, leading to the usage of multiple CAD systems in the design process, thus challenging the CAD interoperability aggressively. Different suppliers require different CAD platforms. It depends on many factors, primarily the nature of the task and product upon which it has to work. Merging different CAD data together without affecting the design intent is quite the hassle. Although, a lot of software these days support different CAD files, there are instances, where the particulars of a project has made the product confined to that one CAD software. Interoperability eases up extra work and whether to make your own software compatible with other, is a decision that should be seriously taken into account. Cost of Ownership The cost of ownership is a big deal among users. Whether it is about the actual cost that concerns users or the fact that they don’t perceive sufficient value, the cost of ownership has always remained a matter to frown for users. A possible cause might be unawareness in the case of the user about an important new functionality available in modern CAD systems that can massively enhance product development processes. Some of these features enable better ways of creating and managing documentation as well as useful tools such as generative design and simulation.To better understand how leveraging new functionalities can offset the notion that CAD software costs are too high, we can weigh on one of the new features, simulation, which compliments the model design. The companies identifying design issues early on in the design cycle are actively using simulation in the said phase thereby integrating it into their design. Simulation aids in iterating the design and making varied choices much earlier in the phase rather than making that choice much later during the prototype phase. In the bottom line, product development professionals want an affordable CAD system, and that provides value to their designs. Interoperability remains a major hindrance that seems quite unnecessary and outdated in this era. Design professionals want their CAD system to be familiar in interaction and easier to use and want that usability to translate into an easier search and hiring process.
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Brief history of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
In November 2014, E-commerce giant Amazon announced the launch of Alexa, a voice-controlled virtual assistant whose task is to transform words into action. It caught the attention of tech enthusiasts and the general populace alike. The inclusion of Samuel L. Jackson’s voice in Alexa was the talk of the tech town. Recent years have witnessed a climactic change in the way technology interacts with humans. Alexa happens to be just that one card out of the deck. From Tesla’s cybertruck to internet giant Facebook’s Edge Rank and Google’s PageRank has called for both awe and a little bit of commotion within the tech community. The driving force behind such innovations can be put under a single umbrella term — Artificial Intelligence or AI. Artificial intelligence (AI) can be defined as — the simulation of human intelligence in machines, especially computer systems and robotics. The machines are programmed to think and mimic human actions such as learning, identifying, and problem-solving. Although AI has burst into the scene nowadays, the history of AI goes way before the term was first coined. It is safe to say that the principle is derived from the Automata theory and found references in many storybooks and novels. Early ideas about thinking machines emerged in the late 1940s to ’50s by the likes of Alan Turing or Von Neumann. Alan Turing famously created the imitation game,now called the Turing Test. After initial enthusiasm and funding on machine intelligence until the early 1960s,entered a decade of silence. It was the period of reduced interest and funding on research and development of AI. This period of decline is known as ‘AI Winter.’ Commercial ventures and financial assistance dried up and AI was put on hibernation for the said period. The late 1970s witnessed a renewed interest in AI. American machine learning pioneer Paul Werbos devised the process of training artificial neural networks through backpropagation of errors. In simple terms — Back Propagation is a learning algorithm for training multi-layer perceptrons, also known as Artificial Neural Networks. The neural networks consist of a set of algorithms that loosely mimics a human brain. It means much like a human brain; it is designed to interpret sensory data, cluster raw inputs, and classify them accordingly. 1986 saw the backpropagation gaining widespread recognition through the efforts of David E. Rumelhart, Geoffrey E. Hinton, Ronald J. Williams. In 1993, Wan became the first person to win the international pattern recognition contest with the help of the backpropagation process. Since the emergence of computers and artificial intelligence, computer scientists have drawn parallels between these intelligent machines and human minds. The comparison reached a pinnacle when, in 1997, an information technology company, IBM, created a computer known as Deep Blue to participate in a chess match with renowned chess master Gary Kasparov. The match went on for several days and received massive media coverage. After a six-game match, Gary Kasparov secured a win, Deep Blue secured two wins and rest three draws. The highlight of the spectacle, however, was the ability of machines to push forward the boundaries and lay down a new benchmark for computers. Deep Blue made an impact on computing in many different industries. It enabled computer scientists to explore and develop ways to design a computer to tackle complex human problems with the help of deep knowledge to analyze a higher number of possible outcomes. The rise in popularity of social media with Facebook saw the implementation of AI/ML in a wide array of applications. One prominent characteristic was the use of DeepFace. As the name suggests, DeepFace is a deep learning facial recognition system designed to identify human faces in digital images. DeepFace was trained on four million images uploaded by Facebook users and is said to reach an accuracy of 97%. Not so long after, NVIDIA launched Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), which is a class of machine learning designed to generate new data with the same inputs provided. The portraits created by GAN is so realistic that a human eye can be fooled into thinking it as a real snapshot of a person. GAN has seen widespread usage in the creation of celebrity faces. Google’s popular doodles are an outcome of the GAN system. The advent and rise of AI, however, has generated quite of bit of negative speculations as well, owing to recent developments in the said field. Some key concerns are as follows: While there are certainly lots of speculations for AI, we expect that the next AI winter would not come. Another AI winter is possible if we repeat the past circumstances. As for now, AI is becoming a part of our daily lives. It is in our cars, phones, and other technologies we use on a day-to-day basis. It is common to interact with AI regularly, whether it is a helping chatbot, personalized ad or better movie show/TV suggestions. AI is too much integrated into our lives and only time will tell where it heads.
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Insourcing-vs-outsourcing
Both insourcing and outsourcing are feasible ways of bringing in labor or specialty skills for a business without hiring permanent employees. When it comes to selecting between outsourcing and insourcing, several entrepreneurs cannot decide what is best for them. Before jumping on to the differences between these two business practices, we need to check the definition of the terms. Insourcing is the practice of assigning a task or function to an individual or group inside a company. The work that would have been contracted out is performed in house. Outsourcing is the act of assigning a task or function to a third party vendor instead of having it performed in-house. Differences between Insourcing and Outsourcing Insourcing is more preferrable when the business requirement is for a limited time or temporary or involves little investment. Outsourcing weighs more when businesses need to cut costs while still in need of expert professionals.
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Insourcing – A Breakdown
Outsourcing has remained an integral aspect of striking deals between engineering and design firms. While it has been growing at a solid pace each year, several companies have taken the route to insource a part of their formerly outsourced services portfolio. Insourcing is the practice of assigning a task to an individual or group inside a company. The work that would have been contracted out is performed in house. Insourcing is entirely opposed to outsourcing where the work is contracted outside. Insourcing encircles any work assigned to an individual, team, department or other groups within an organization. It is a task or function that a firm could also outsource to a vendor, being directed in-roads. It often involves getting specialists with relevant expertise to fill temporary needs or train existing professionals to execute tasks without the need to outsource the same. The group of professionals could either be direct employees of the organization or hired expertise from outside third party vendors. A perfect example can be put in this way – a company based in India opens a plant in the United States and employs American workers to work on Indian products. From the Indian perspective, this is outsourcing, but from the American perspective, it is insourcing. Causes of Insourcing The leading reasons for insourcing include: Reasons to Insource While executing an insourcing project can be achieved, it is essential to know that insourcing a service can be more complicated than outsourcing the same. The transition may require rebuilding services and leveraging capabilities from ground level that were once wholly owned by the service provider, which can turn out to be more complicated than expected.
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Fixed-time contract vs Time & material contract
When outsourcing projects or insourcing tasks, organizations face a very crucial question about billing. Working with outsourced development team means that there are a few elementals that need to be sorted out from the beginning. It is because each project is different in its regard and comes up with its own set of requirements. When a customer signs a deal with a software development company, they sign a billing agreement. The pricing model used depends mainly on project requirements. Two popular billing models are — Fixed-price Contract and Time and Material Contract. Selecting the right contract agreement is a vital step when outsourcing software development. Consequences of a wrong choice may yield unexpected outcomes. Each type of contract has its pros and cons; hence, choosing any one of them may be a complicated task. The option that is well suited for one project may not be the ideal for another one. This article emphasizes on the advantages and disadvantages of these pricing models and explains which is better in what condition. Fixed Price Contract The fixed-price agreement is a type of contract where the service provider is accountable for completion of the project within the agreed sum in the contract. In a Fixed Price model, the total budget on the project is set before development starts and remains unchanged. Plus, the exact deadline must be approved before the development starts. The contractor will bear the risks for late execution of works. It is a practical choice in those cases, where requirements, specifications, and rates are highly predictable. The client should be able to lay down his clear vision of the project with the contractor to ensure appropriate final results. When to use a fixed price contract: Fixed Price advantages Time and Material Contract Time and material (T&M) contract is the type of contract where the contractor is charged for the number of hours spent on a specific project, plus costs of materials. Time and material contracts are much different from Fixed-Price because they involve billing clients for what they get. A time and material contract charges clients based on an hourly rate for all labor, along with the costs of materials. This type of arrangement might present some risk to the budget, but factors such as flexibility and opportunity to adjust requirements, shift directions and replace features prove to be very beneficial nonetheless. In this model, the customer has a more significant role in the development of the software solution and bears all risks related to the project. The length of responsibilities that the client carries through the whole development process with time & materials is much higher than with fixed-price projects. When to use T&M price contract: Time and Material advantages
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Choosing an insourcing partner
Insourcing software development has turned out to be an effective way for tech firms to boost business (to learn more, refer to Insourcing – A Breakdown ). It is the exact opposite of outsourcing with similar intents (to know more, refer to Insourcing vs. Outsourcing). But like any business strategy, preparation and execution is necessary and are crucial for a successful endeavor. Choosing an insourcing partner requires as much meticulous planning and careful observation as in the case of outsourcing. Following are the tips on choosing the right insourcing partner for your business. Establish insourcing goals This is the most critical step a company can take while choosing an insourcing partner. The scope of work, the billings, and the project requirements have to fall under the insourcing partner’s capability. The responsibility of the partner is to maintain a high standard of quality. The Right team size Many companies overlook this consideration while looking into insourcing options, but it’s one of the most crucial factors in completing an in-house project. Make sure the vendor partner has the right blend of expertise and number to cater to your requirements. Work Experience Find out if the vendor-supplied workforce has the right experience and expertise in delivering services similar to the one you plan for insourcing. This includes several projects executed, types of clients worked for, and function expertise for knowledge-intensive tasks. Assess the management team’s experience and qualifications, project managers, and other team members of the vendor company. Beforeentering into a long-term or substantial contract, interacting with the proposed team members before the commitment ensures fitment between the requirement and the team chose to execute it. Financial Stability This factor is also overlooked to a great extent. It is essential to make sure that the vendor partner has sufficient working capital and is financially secure. There have been cases where the insourced workforce is not paid correctly by their employers, which affectstheir productivity. It is a classic case of ergonomics. Privacy and Confidentiality Numerous projects emphasize the confidentiality factor. There might be instances where a task cannot be outsourced merely because of the sophisticated nature and business goals entangled with it. But then, lack of workforce and budget issues drive a company to go for the insourcing route. It helps in keeping the work in-house and private while supplying it with necessary measurements. There might be a variety of other factors out there depending upon client preferences and conditions. Irrespective of the vendor one chooses, starting a pilot project with a small team is always feasible to assess the outcome’s scope in the long run and scale-up with time seeing the vendor’s fitment with the business objectives and culture.
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6 factors to consider while selecting any Algorithm Library
Processing geometric inputs play a crucial role in the product development cycle. Ever since the introduction of complex algorithm libraries, the NPD landscape has changed drastically, and for good. Typically, a well suitable library streamlines the work process by executing complicated tasks using a wide array of functions. An algorithm library basically works on the principle where it is fed with specific instructions to execute in a way with functionalities customised with it. For example, in manufacturing industry; there is a term known as point cloud library and it holds its expertise in converting millions of point cloud data into mesh models. There are particular algorithms to perform numerous perplexing tasks. There are platforms that use specific and unique functionalities and programming to get the job done. Manufacturing requirements, end product objectives lay down the necessities for choosing a particular algorithm library. This article sheds a light on 6 key factors to consider while selecting any algorithm library. The intersection of AI and 3D printing has long been predicted. AI can analyze a 3D model and determine which parts will fail to form the part. 3D printers can also remove material from failed regions and use AI to create a different version. AI can even analyze a part’s geometry and identify a potential problem so an alternative way to create it can be found. The end result? A better-designed part with a high rate of success. Required functionality Once data has been fed and stored, methods for compressing this kind of data become highly interesting. The different algorithm libraries come up with their own set of functionalities. Ideally, functionalities are best when developed by in-house development team, to suit up in accordance with design objectives. It is a good practice to develop functionalities to address complex operations as well as simple tasks. It is also essential to develop functions which might be of need down the line. In the end, one’s objective defines what functionality laced algorithm library will be in use. Data Size and Performance A huge data can be challenging to handle and share between project partners. A large data is directly proportional to a large processing time. All the investments in hardware and quality connections will be of little use if one is using poor performing library. An algorithm library that allows for the process of multiple scans simultaneously has to be the primary preference. One should also have a good definition of the performance expectations from the library, depending on your application whether real time or batch mode. Processing speed Libraries that automate manual processes often emphasize on processing speed, delivering improvements to either the processing or modeling. This allows for faster innovation and often better, yet singular, products. As witnessed in the case of point cloud, the ability to generate scan trees after a dataset has been processed greatly improves efficiency. A system will smooth interface that permits fast execution, greatly reduces the effort and time taken to handle large datasets. Make versus Buy This situation drops in at the starting phases of processing. Let us take an example of point cloud libraries. Some of the big brands producing point cloud processing libraries are Autodesk, Bentley, Trimble, and Faro. However, most of these systems arrive as packages with 3D modelling, thereby driving up costs. If such is the case, it is advisable to form an in-house point cloud library that suits the necessities. Nowadays, many open source platforms give out PCL to get the job done which has proven to be quite beneficial. Commercial Terms The commercial aspect also plays a vital role in while choosing an algorithmic library. Whether to opt for single or recurring payment depends upon the volume and nature of the project. There are different models to choose from, if one decides to go with licensing a commercial library: A: Single payment: no per license fees, and an optional AMC B: Subscription Based: Annual subscription, without per license fees C: Hybrid: A certain down payment and per license revenue sharing Whatever option you select, make sure there is a clause in the legal agreement that caps the increase in the charges to a reasonable limit. Storage, Platforms and Support Storage has become less of an issue than what it was even a decade ago. Desktops and laptops with more than a terabyte of capacity are all over the market. Not every algorithm library requires heavy graphics. Investing in a quality graphics card is only important if your preferred library demands heavy graphic usage. That doesn’t mean investing in cheap hardware and storage systems available. A quality processor with lot of RAM is decent if the processing task is CPU and memory intensive. Another point to look into, is the type of platform or interface to be exact, the algorithm library supports. Varied requirements call for varied platforms such as Microsoft, Mac, and Linux. The usage, and licensing should be taken into account before selecting an interface. Last but not the least, it is to mention that the inputs from customers are highly significant and there has to be a robust support system to address any grievance from the customer side. Having a trained support staff or a customized automated support system must be given high priority.
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Points to consider while developing regression suite for CAD Projects
As the development of software makes its progress, there comes a stage where it needs to be evaluated before concluding it as the final output. This phase is usually known as testing. Testing detects and pinpoints the bugs and errors in the software, which eventually leads to rectification measures. There are instances where the rectifications bring in new errors, thus sending it back to another round of testing, hence creating a repeating loop. This repeated testing of an already tested application to detect errors resulting from changes has a term — Regression Testing. Regression testing is the selective retesting of an application to ensure that modifications carried out has not caused unintended effects in the previously working application. In simple words, to ensure all the old functionalities are still running correctly with new changes. This is a very common step in any software development process by testers. Regression testing is required in the following scenarios: Although, every software application requires regression testing, there are specific points that apply to different applications, based on their functioning and utility. Computer-Aided design or CAD software applications require specific points to keep in mind before undergoing regression testing. Regression testing can be broadly classified into two categories, UI Testing and Functionality Testing. UI testing stands for User Interface which is basically testing an applications graphical interface. Numerous testing tools are available for carrying out UI testing. However, functional testing presents situation for us. This content focuses on the points to take care while carrying out functional regression testing. Here are most effective points to consider for functional regression testing: Failure to address performance issues can hamper the functionality and success of your application, with unwelcome consequences for end users if your application doesn’t perform to expectations.
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New Application Development – Addon vs Standalone
At the starting phase of developing an application, the primary question usually comes like this—whether to make it an add-on application or a standalone application? Before we get into the details, we need to understand what exactly these two terms mean in the computing world. An add-on (also known as addon or plug-in) is a software application, which is added to an existing computer program to introduce specific features. As per Microsoft’s style guide, the term add-on is supposed to represent the hardware features while add-ins should be used only for software utilities, although these guidelines are not really followed as terms are mixed up quite often. When a program supports add-ons, it usually means it supports customization. Web browsers have always supported the installation of different add-ons to suit the tastes and topics of different users by customizing the look and feel of that particular browser. There are many reasons for introducing add-ons in computer applications. The primary reasons are: Usually, the host applications operate independently, which makes it possible for developers to add and update add-on features without impacting the host application itself. A host application doesn’t depend on add-ons but on the contrary, an add-on depends on the host application. Add-ons usually depend on the services provided by the host application and cannot operate by themselves. A Standalone application is the type software that doesn’t comes bundled with other independent software features. In simple words, a standalone application does not require any separate software to operate. A stand-alone application deploys services locally, uses the services, and terminates the services when they are no longer needed. If an application does not need to interact with any other applications, then it can be a stand-alone application with its own exclusive local service deployment. Services locally deployed by this application are not available to any other application. A standalone application needs to be installed on every system which makes it hard to maintain. In the event of a system crash or a virus attack, when a system needs to be replaced or reinstalled, the application also needs to be reinstalled. The access to the application is limited only to the systems that have the application installed. Standalone applications can never be kept online, and remote availability of data is practically impossible. However, there are situations where standalone application is the best choice. Here are a few:
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