faq
What types of companies find the services of Syncroness most beneficial?
Syncroness is constantly working to add and grow its customer base. Over the years we have defined some general characteristics of our best customers. Please use this overview as a general guideline only.
• Organizational Characteristics
Company size: In most cases, Syncroness services provide the most advantage to midsize (50 -400M) companies or similar sized divisions of larger companies.
Product development maturity: Our best customers have significant experience and understanding of the product development process.
Strategic perspective: Our customers have a strategic philosophy to utilize external resources as a way to increase efficiency and lower cost.
Win-win attitude: We are not selling commodities…we want customers who understand the nature of a business relationship based on mutual interest and success.
Engineering capability: Generally our best customers have significant engineering capability themselves usually no less than 20 engineers internally.
Complexity: The products or programs are relatively complex or have a significant regulatory component to them (FDA, FAA, MIL etc.)
• Business Titles for Project-based Work
o Engineering Managers
o Directors of Engineering
o Director of Product Development
o Product Development Managers
o R&D Manager
• Business Titles for Business Improvement Consulting Services
o VP Engineering
o VP R&D
o CEO
o COO
o Presidents
o General Managers
What awards/achievements has Syncroness received?
Inc. 5000: Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011
Inc. Top 50 Engineering Companies, 2008
Deloitte: Fast 50 2008
Deloitte Colorado Technology: Fast 50, 2007, 2008
Deloitte Technology: Fast 500 2008
Colorado Biz: Top 250 Private Companies 2007, 2008
Colorado Companies to Watch 2011
How are projects managed?
Syncroness has a 3 tier management structure for all accounts. This process has proven effective not only to manage individual 
projects but to ensure satisfaction and nurture the relationship.
Account Manager: Generally speaking, this individual is responsible for the high-level business relationship between you and Syncroness. This role handles issues related to contracts, overall satisfaction and quality as well as new business opportunities. The account manager is a senior level or partner level person at Syncroness who is responsible to maintain and grow the business relationship and act as a quality assurance point on your behalf.
Project Lead: Project leads are senior engineers who maintain “cradle to grave” responsibility for you and your projects. The project lead is the lead technical person who is responsible for all aspects of the project. He or she is the primary contact point and schedules resources etc. to get the job done.
Project Manager: At Syncroness, the project manager acts more as an administrative function to track the project, check billing, reporting, adhere to quality processes and ensure that the contract is being fulfilled by both Syncroness and our customer.
What is your intellectual property policy?
Under normal engagement, Syncroness work is considered “work for hire” and therefore all intellectual property whether existing or developed in the course of the engagement are owned by our customers. In the case of any new developments where Syncroness must be named as an inventor or co-inventor all rights are assigned to the customer as would be done with an internal employee.
There are exceptions when Syncroness invests development effort into a product where we retain some rights as a result but these exceptions are handled under a separate contractual agreement. Read more about Syncroness patents.
Syncroness employees are named inventors on dozens of patents. While Syncroness does have extensive experience with patents, this does not substitute for qualified legal analysis to review the landscape etc. Therefore, Syncroness generally does not assume the risk that designs it develops will not infringe upon current state of the art. Certainly Syncroness does agree that we will not knowingly develop designs that infringe on others intellectual property.
What is your confidentiality policy?
Syncroness typically reviews and signs mutual non-disclosure agreements with all our customers. These are generally provided by our customers, however, Syncroness does have a standard NDA available should you require one.
What is your pricing model?
Proposal development is a highly complex process and Syncroness has developed sophisticated methods for estimating. All programs are estimated by Project Leads who are expected to create schedules and budgets that they themselves will be responsible to execute. As with any complex estimating, we create tasks, estimate hours and then calculate totals based on hourly rates as a starting point. Our standard published rates as of June 1, 2011 are:
Titles
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Rates / Hour
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Pricing Models
Fixed Cost: Fixed cost projects are suitable for companies that require a clear understanding of budget and schedule and expect to hold their vendors under strict adherence to the agreement. Generally, this arrangement transfers virtually all of the risk to Syncroness and therefore this usually carries the highest contingency premium and therefore is the highest cost.
Time and Materials: At the other end of the spectrum, is time and materials. Generally this arrangement contains no premium but transfers no risk either and is therefore the most aggressive in timing and cost. This is suitable for companies that are comfortable with having some uncertainty as to the final total cost or repeat customers of Syncroness where trust has been established.
Fixed Phase: Syncroness has had good success with what we call a fixed Phase approach to projects. In this approach, a fixed cost is provided for the initial phase, with budgetary numbers provided for subsequent phases. At the end of each phase, the next phase is reexamined for cost and schedule based on the knowledge gained from the previous phase. This approach shares risk between Syncroness and you and is therefore priced somewhere between Fixed Cost and T&M.
Other Arrangements
Other pricing models exist on a contractual basis and may include substantial discounts in exchange for things valuable to Syncroness. These include:
- Long term, predictable commitments of work volume
- Ownership in Intellectual Property that has value
- Joint Ventures
Standard Terms:
- Payment Net 30 days billed every two weeks
- Deposit of 20% of initial phase. (credited to last invoice)
- Written Authorization, (email, Purchase Order, signed proposal or written correspondence)
- Signed Standard Master Services Agreement [Link]
How do you assess risk?
Anyone who participates in product development understands that no projects go exactly as planned. Therefore, Syncroness employs a sophisticated risk analysis methodology to properly gauge the unknowns of a project. Syncroness uses Crystal Ball software to run Monte Carlo simulations to determine the project risk. This includes reviewing our library of historical projects to see how those projects concluded in terms of schedule and budget.
How do you ensure that my data is secure?
Just as you protect and maintain your data within your organization, Syncroness has protected networks, data backup, encryption as well as a business continuity plan that includes off site replication of all data. This strategy ensures that your data is secure and viable at all times.
What quality systems do you employ?
Syncroness operates in a variety of markets and we maintain a sophisticated quality system that can be adjusted as needed to meet a particular regulatory environment. We are a registered ISO facility and qualified to work in Medical, Aerospace and other regulated markets. This includes the ability to work on projects that require security clearances.
Do you do manufacturing?
No, Syncroness is not a manufacturer – we do build short runs of products for prototyping or very small runs for testing etc. We do however work with you or a contract manufacturer to get products produced. We have extensive experience working with many different types of manufacturing organizations. If you don’t have a manufacturing strategy, we can recommend manufactures that fit your particular situation.
Do you have prototyping capability in-house?
Yes and no. Syncroness does make prototypes. However, we have purposely not invested in prototyping equipment for good reason. We work on a variety of projects, so we are always using various prototype production techniques. For us to own all of this equipment would not make sense, especially because we can achieve very short turnaround from our network of suppliers. Our normal process is to perform the design, order all the materials then do the testing and assembly at Syncroness prior to delivering the prototype(s) to you. This process has proven itself as the best one over the years.