There is nothing more important than working closely with a customer. This gives us a deep understanding of their challenges and enables mutual ideation, and even pushing back when needed. That's how we earn their trust and respect.
Bill enjoys working closely with customers on complex problems. For him, the thrill of problem solving is discovering how innovations can increase performance over existing technologies and products. For TE, he helps drive new solutions for high-speed, ruggedized, small form factor and low-cost optical transceivers. To generate opportunities across TE, he partners with TE engineers working on high speed data communications solutions. While most of these engineers are working to squeeze more useful capacity out of copper cables, using approaches such as TE's STRADA Whisper technology, Bill is looking for what is next and how to address the ever-increasing need for higher data capacity. Bill knows that at some point copper technologies will reach their practical limits of bandwidth and distance, and he understands the need to balance power consumption and cost. To help TE engineers prepare for the potential impact of limits to copper solutions, he focuses on developing creative and cost-competitive alternatives to copper. Bill's work has enabled TE engineers to solve for the kinds of changes that could transform the way data is transmitted for virtually any of our customer’s. It has also helped him gain customer trust as a valued partner helping them solve for market opportunities.
Which market forces are shaping innovation in high-speed connectivity?
Most of his projects tend to focus on a system wide solution where the factors that influence success may be multifaceted. First, there's the increasing demand for higher speed applications, service integration, and reduced latency, which all drive the need for higher speed communications. Second is the need for increased I/O connector density, again where fewer higher speed or integrated service interfaces create opportunities for smaller form factor I/O.
Third is the desire to reduce weight in all forms of transportation, which is leading to service integration and lighter weight communication bus architectures, rather than many point-to-point/services specific interfaces. Last is the need to reduce the overall complexity of today’s wiring harnesses; here the time to install, repair and replace these complicated harnesses is a critical operational cost and time problem for cars and planes alike.
Across TE, we are creating solutions to these types of challenges. For example, our team in the Netherlands is working on optical connectivity solutions for multiple Business Units based on our Light Engine Platform. They are working to solve for the forces mentioned above, so that they can create new opportunities for our customers. As he sees it, the challenge is trying to create optical XCVRs that can survive in harsh conditions (e.g., deep sea, aerospace, transportation) at a cost point that is as close to parity as possible with existing copper solutions.
This thinking is being applied to other types of high-speed applications, in medical devices for ultra-high-definition endoscopy and reduced complexity terminations for ultrasound transducers. Applying this knowledge creates opportunities to drive connectivity innovation in the things our customers are designing and manufacturing.
What does it take to evolve an idea into an innovation?
Our customers are expecting us to help them differentiate around their unique opportunities. They trust TE to help them develop innovative, reliable, rugged technology that they can bring to market. There is nothing more important than working closely with a customer and their challenges. This gives us a deep understanding of their challenges and enables mutual ideation, and even pushing back when needed. That's how we earn their trust and respect.
Innovation can take many different forms. It can be a completely new transformational idea, or it can be aimed at competitive positioning such as reducing cost, time to assemble or ease of manufacturability. It can also be aimed at redesigning something to avoid a competitor's IP position. Innovation can also be purely aimed at offering better performance at a similar cost point or building something that is customized for a particular customer application and others realize the value of that product.
To turn and idea into an innovation requires knowledge of the competitive landscape or taking the time to do due diligence on exciting intellectual property. Having a broad breath of different industries’ technologies is also important because if you are too narrowly focused on a specific Industry segment, you can miss something. And of course, having a close relationship with our IP attorneys is a very valuable asset!
There is nothing more important than working closely with a customer. This gives us a deep understanding of their challenges and enables mutual ideation, and even pushing back when needed. That's how we earn their trust and respect.
Bill enjoys working closely with customers on complex problems. For him, the thrill of problem solving is discovering how innovations can increase performance over existing technologies and products. For TE, he helps drive new solutions for high-speed, ruggedized, small form factor and low-cost optical transceivers. To generate opportunities across TE, he partners with TE engineers working on high speed data communications solutions. While most of these engineers are working to squeeze more useful capacity out of copper cables, using approaches such as TE's STRADA Whisper technology, Bill is looking for what is next and how to address the ever-increasing need for higher data capacity. Bill knows that at some point copper technologies will reach their practical limits of bandwidth and distance, and he understands the need to balance power consumption and cost. To help TE engineers prepare for the potential impact of limits to copper solutions, he focuses on developing creative and cost-competitive alternatives to copper. Bill's work has enabled TE engineers to solve for the kinds of changes that could transform the way data is transmitted for virtually any of our customer’s. It has also helped him gain customer trust as a valued partner helping them solve for market opportunities.
Which market forces are shaping innovation in high-speed connectivity?
Most of his projects tend to focus on a system wide solution where the factors that influence success may be multifaceted. First, there's the increasing demand for higher speed applications, service integration, and reduced latency, which all drive the need for higher speed communications. Second is the need for increased I/O connector density, again where fewer higher speed or integrated service interfaces create opportunities for smaller form factor I/O.
Third is the desire to reduce weight in all forms of transportation, which is leading to service integration and lighter weight communication bus architectures, rather than many point-to-point/services specific interfaces. Last is the need to reduce the overall complexity of today’s wiring harnesses; here the time to install, repair and replace these complicated harnesses is a critical operational cost and time problem for cars and planes alike.
Across TE, we are creating solutions to these types of challenges. For example, our team in the Netherlands is working on optical connectivity solutions for multiple Business Units based on our Light Engine Platform. They are working to solve for the forces mentioned above, so that they can create new opportunities for our customers. As he sees it, the challenge is trying to create optical XCVRs that can survive in harsh conditions (e.g., deep sea, aerospace, transportation) at a cost point that is as close to parity as possible with existing copper solutions.
This thinking is being applied to other types of high-speed applications, in medical devices for ultra-high-definition endoscopy and reduced complexity terminations for ultrasound transducers. Applying this knowledge creates opportunities to drive connectivity innovation in the things our customers are designing and manufacturing.
What does it take to evolve an idea into an innovation?
Our customers are expecting us to help them differentiate around their unique opportunities. They trust TE to help them develop innovative, reliable, rugged technology that they can bring to market. There is nothing more important than working closely with a customer and their challenges. This gives us a deep understanding of their challenges and enables mutual ideation, and even pushing back when needed. That's how we earn their trust and respect.
Innovation can take many different forms. It can be a completely new transformational idea, or it can be aimed at competitive positioning such as reducing cost, time to assemble or ease of manufacturability. It can also be aimed at redesigning something to avoid a competitor's IP position. Innovation can also be purely aimed at offering better performance at a similar cost point or building something that is customized for a particular customer application and others realize the value of that product.
To turn and idea into an innovation requires knowledge of the competitive landscape or taking the time to do due diligence on exciting intellectual property. Having a broad breath of different industries’ technologies is also important because if you are too narrowly focused on a specific Industry segment, you can miss something. And of course, having a close relationship with our IP attorneys is a very valuable asset!
