January 2021

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A Year of Change and Pandemic Surprises

​While COVID has been a challenge for us all, there have been some bright spots. We have done our best to lean into the changes. Projects continued in new ways. New opportunities were created. And we discovered ways to improve how we work with our own team, and our customer teams.

Collaboration to Fight COVID

The pandemic has brought many players into coordination to make a positive impact globally, and S5 Solutions client Briotech is one. Already manufacturing natural liquid-based skin products, Washington-based Briotech made a quick shift in 2020 into manufacturing commercial liquid disinfectant dispensers using organic, nontoxic and food-safe ingredients. Composed of salt, water and Hypochlorous (HOCl), Briotech HOCl unlike bleach, ammonias, and alcohol, is non-irritating for skin or lungs, nonflammable and requires no Personal Protective Equipment to use.    Read more

Another COVID-related project was for a long-time customer that produces equipment for testing and calibration of ventilators. There was a big increase in demand for their equipment and it was a challenge to keep up with production. We were able to help them significantly reduce the test time for the units, removing a bottleneck and allow them to deliver more units.    Read more

​More Connections

S5 Solutions experienced a happy surprise in this volatile year - learning to work remotely got us in touch with more people than ever. We made more new customer contacts in 2020 than ever before. 
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Most businesses working from home meant our networking efforts cut quickly past normal channels and straight to the top decision-makers. “People had to accept doing business in a new fashion, and my response was ‘let’s buckle up and go!’” said Craig Kunard, Operations Manager.

​Working Remote

With much of our company working from home, we improved our ability to handle entire projects remotely. We have always supported remote projects. Since much of our work involves custom hardware, that can pose some challenges. Improved VPN and other cloud tools have enabled us to support better remote hardware interaction. At the same time clients expanded their understanding that a high quality, customer-focused engineering service can be provided virtually.

Customized services mean that S5 can help clients in a variety of ways - software and hardware testing, product development, and more -- but explaining our expertise is a critical piece. “We can be the special forces for them, integrating with their team, delivering, then stepping back,” said Kunard.

​More Connected

​This year we had a substantial increase in meaningful conversations with customers as well as internal and external team connections on video calls. While it is hard to fully replace in-person interaction, the embracing of online meetings has made us more connected than ever to our customers, in town and across the country. It has been very helpful in getting projects across the U.S. lining up for 2021.

​Working Even Remoter

S5 understands its clients’ new struggles and gains in remote teams since S5 itself has gone virtual internally, too. A long-time employee even moved out of state to work remotely, still managing his Washington-based team. “Craig (Bedward, President) realized very quickly that we had a lot of tools in our belt we had been using peripherally already that would assist a remote working relationship internally,” said Tony Kuiper, Project Engineer. “At this state of the world, the location of my body is less important than being able to provide value, solve problems and create solutions.”

​Improved Ventilator Testing

Our software improvements helped our client meet COVID demand for ventilator testers.

Case Study

COVID Disinfectant Production Machine

Machine-control software for HOCl production to fight COVID.

Case Study

S5 Solutions is still iterating every design phase and constantly improving performance. They’re really best of class. You couldn’t ask for a better group of people.
​- Jennifer Wiens, Director of Product Management, Briotech

​Silver lining or business technology acceleration, however you look at it, the end results of this year bode well for a highly productive (and virtual) 2021, for S5 and its clients.

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We would love to hear about your 2021 projects.