-----Original Message----- "John L. Mc Laurin" wrote:
From: Ian S. Piper <ian@dieboldes.com> To: John L. Mc Laurin <asailsman@earthlink.net> Cc: announce@dieboldes.com <announce@dieboldes.com> Date: Wednesday, February 10, 1999 1:47 PM Subject: Re: accu feed Has there been any further development on the status of our Accu Feed. I.e. - reliability, faster, new design?Hi John and others: We are currently awaiting a proposal from an engineering firm for a retrofit design for the current feeder. That proposal is scheduled to be in the latter part of this week. The retrofit design is to produce a retrofit for an existing Accu-Feed that will make it more reliable, not faster. We are also requesting proposals for new designs of a faster ballot counting system, but the retrofit feeder design has priority at this time. The faster ballot counting system design is in its conception stage (not even an infant yet). I have surveyed in-house marketing and in-house support staff on features for this design, which has served for the initial steps we needed to take for this project, but at this time I would like gather input from the field sales and field support staff. I will not list off the features that we have discussed so far as I want everybody to give me a fresh approach that is unrestricted. Remember, be realistic about what you perceive as the needs of the customer. Technology can do a lot these days but it still can't perform miracles. If you want this thing to fly to the moon, it may take 10 to 20 years to design it at a +$1,000,000 product cost. Think not only of technical features but also ergonomics (i.e., shape, size, weight, operator access areas, operation flow, throughput, etc.). I want to see your responses in an organized list (e.g. with headings like Technical Features, Ergonomic Features, Marketing Features, etc.). Each feature is to have a weighting factor as follows: 3 Have to have it, Only those responses that come in by Monday, February 22, 1999 will have a chance for consideration. This isn't short notice; you've probably already dreamed about what you want it to do, now put it to paper (or E-mail, which is just as good). I thank you in advance for your contributions. I hope we can all work toward a feasible solution. Sincerely: Ian S. Piper |