The employees at Bantam Technology are very humbled by the fact that our customers really, really, love our products.  We have customers who have been with us for over 16 years; as their needs grow, they think of us first to protect their infrastructure.  Customers tell us that they have seen first-hand that our products stop lightning strike energies from destroying the computers in a restaurant, truck stop, or even a military base training facility.  When we hear these testimonials, it helps close the loop on our design and manufacturing process, that part of the loop that is “application validation and customer satisfaction.”  That is what drives us.

So how do we do it? 

1. We listen to customers.  Rich, Mike, Maurice and Rex travel around the world, sometimes just for “listening sessions” with prospects and current customers who want to share their problems with electrical infrastructure or give us suggestions on product improvements or the desire for something in a new application.  Whatever it is, we really enjoy the relationships and the sharing that develops from these encounters.  We take lots of notes.
2. Bantam Technology has a Product Roadmap, with swim-lanes for industry segments we serve.  We whiteboard the customer feedback along with industry trends and plan either product iterations or new product development and introductions, just like the software industry does.  With the power and resources of Lodestone Group’s Digilant manufacturing division, Bantam Technology is quite nimble in terms of adjusting to market demands.
3. There is a team of five engineers, all capable of using modern 2D and 3D development tools, who quickly document the product concepts into virtual prototypes.  We can 3D print virtually anything in-house and obtain stock parts or produce custom components within days.  We excel at rapidly developing functional prototypes.
4. The next step is critical in delivering our Safety, Performance and Value;  Our engineers are experts at DFM: Design For Manufacturing.  Tapping in-house expert knowledge in tooling design, plastic molding injection, steel and aluminum fabrication, transformer or inductor design and manufacturing, we develop a product that can actually be manufactured, with no surprises on the production floor.
5. But deep in that process, we also employ a Design For Safety process.  We work exclusively with Product Safety Consulting in Bensenville, Illinois to validate that our products are designed with all required (and some not required) safety and compliance standards in mind and in place.  From wire routing, to materials specification, to temperature testing to impact testing, every Bantam Technology design goes through this step before and after DFM.  
6. And yes, we surge test the H.E. double-hockey-sticks out of our products.  We do all of the standard surge tests that will be done by the OSHA-approved safety labs with PSC’s help.  But we do them all with a load connected, just like our customers will use them.  And we do this because the safety test protocols do not test with monitored loads – if a load is tested, it isn’t an electronic load.  We connect a computer as a load and make sure that it remains on and working throughout the tests.
7. Once the first article passes all of this testing and receives its safety mark, Digilant’s manufacturing abilities allow us to produce a product that is final assembled and individually tested right here in Anaheim, California.

I hope you enjoyed this transparent look at just how we go through the product development process.  We are not a marketing-driven company, nor are we strictly an engineering driven company; we are customer-responsible and resource-enabled.