CSIA Post Best Practice Criterion

As you probably know by now, NI recommends the Control Systems Integrator Association as a great way to learn about the system integration business from colleagues who also manage the same type of business.

Setting the bar

You may also be aware that CSIA has developed a set of guidelines and and audit process that certify your business practices (a bit like ISO but specific for system integrators). Potential members have often asked what the criteria in the audit for CSIA Certification are, but the criteria were not made public . . . until now.

 For Your Benefit

Why would you want to know the criteria? Perhaps, you are curious to know what  integrators had to do in their business to pass the audit for certification before joining the association. For instance, was the audit about technical ability, business practices, or both.?

Chceck them out

To help inform folks about the CSIA Certification process, the audit criteria are now listed on our website under Certified Member Program. Find them online at: http://www.controlsys.org/about/documents/AuditCriteriaV302.pdf

I encourage you to review them. If nothing else, it is a quick check list of the areas that CSIA believes are critical to your success as a system integrator. Further yet, consider joining CSIA to get more details about these and other practices, have access to other material, attend their meeting and annual conferences, …..

CSIA Conference – A Great Event to Share Best Practices

I’m looking forward to attending the CSIA Conference, April 30 – May 2. It is always a great opportunity to learn more about best practices. I’m particularly looking forward to the “Survival and Growth in These Trying Times” presentation by Don Roberts from Exotek. If you are not familiar with CSIA (Control Systems Integrator’s Association), they are committed to the business development of system integration companies. And Exotek is a management-consulting firm focusing specifically on system integration companies.

A Little Reminiscing

I first heard of CSIA in the mid-1990s when National Instruments was making our first foray into the Industrial Automation industry with our BridgeVIEW (now LabVIEW DSC), Lookout, and our Distributed I/O products. I attend my first CSIA conference in 1996 with the sole purpose of finding potential NI integrators, but discovered a group of system integration managers that were willing to share their ideas about managing system integration companies successfully. Over the years, I’ve been an active participant and promoter of CSIA I’ve supported the development of CSIA Best Practices and Benchmarks which provides performance standards in critical business areas. NI was the first company to endorse the CSIA audit, when we included it as part of our Select Partner qualification process.

Alliance Partners Contributions to CSIA

I’m proud to say that our NI Alliance Partners have made significant contributions to CSIA over the years. To date, over 30 NI Alliance Partners have joined CSIA. Over 20 have passed the audit, constituting nearly 1/4th of the 100 Certified CSIA members. And, I’d like to especially recognize Dean Streck from V I Engineering and Jim Campbell from Viewpoint Systems, who have just completed their tenure on the CSIA Executive Council. They have made substantial contributions to the organization including: Dean – leading the Best Practices committee and Jim – for his service at Treasurer and on the Insurance committee. Thanks for your efforts and being good representatives of NI and our Alliance Partners.

Question: Are you going to the CSIA conference? Or if you do, let us know what you thought of it.

Building Stronger Partners

At National Instruments, we create innovative computer-based products that empower engineers and scientists to improve our world and every day life. Now, to have a broad impact on engineering and scientific endeavors around the world, we recognize that we can’t do it all. So, we focus on building a powerful, flexible platform with tightly integrated software and hardware components. And, we rely on our partners to make our customers successful.

The NI Alliance Partner Program

So, we established the NI Alliance Partner Program, a worldwide network of more than 600 consultants, system integrators, developers, channel partners, and industry experts who join NI in providing customers with complete, high-quality solutions.

Partners are critical to our success.

 

 

The Need for Stronger Partners

As the National Instruments product line grows capable of solving more demanding applications, we recognize the need to develop relationships with system integrators and value-added resellers that are more than just experts in our products. We need to partner with companies that have the resources and skills to handle larger projects and deliver solution-level products.

Fostering Better Business Practices

During the past fifteen years, I’ve worked with hundreds of companies from small consultants to large system integration organizations. What I discovered is that service companies encounter common challenges as they grow their business. I’ve been able to observe good business practices to overcome these challenges.

In addition, NI is a member of the CSIA (Control Systems Integrator’s Association) who are committed to the business development of control system integration companies. I have been active an participant in the creation of the CSIA Best Practices and Benchmarks which provides performance standards in critical business areas that are critical to successful system integration. I also work closely with Exotek, a management-consulting firm who are experts in best business practices for system integraton companies.