Automation isn’t just for manufacturing tasks. In fact, many of the grinding, repetitive tasks your engineers can’t stand can easily be automated out of existence. Any task that is repeatable is automatable. That means you can save big money on man hours, letting your...
Software Development & Release Management
How To Leverage Jira as a Service Desk
Many of you are undoubtedly familiar with using Jira as an issue tracker. But for those of you who have been juggling issue tracking and meeting SLA requirements -- and for those of you who had the recently acquired VertygoSLA addon -- this article may be useful...
How To: Move Git Commits From One Branch to Another
Git encourages developers to use branches during their development process as a means of coordinating and managing changes to the master branch. Git does not force any particular strategy for doing so and consequently, several popular branching strategies have...
One-click Installer for PADS Flow 9.3 and Update1
Everyone loves a one-click installer, but setting this up can be a headache, especially when a company changes the way this is done. You can setup your installation script to install both PADS9.3 and PADS9.3_update1 with a double-click of the mouse! Here are the first...
Upgrade to HWMonitor Pro and Make Your Computer’s Sensors Work For You!
Some time ago, I wrote an article about CPUID’s wonderful tool, HWMonitor. Today I want to follow up on that and give a few tips on how to make it more useful. Firstly, HWMonitor is a free tool, but CPUID publishes a Professional version of the product, predictably...
Seven Attitude Hacks for Better IT Service
Attitudes are important things -- they are the lens through which we filter everything life throws at us, and they can either be the secret to our success or our undoing. We've all heard the stereotype that says IT professionals have bad attitudes, and maybe your own...
A Quick Start Guide to Installing Ceph
This seems to be the age of “Big Data”. Every sector seems to have a need for it -- from biotechs doing genome sequencing, to financial providers mining market data. For many, the ability to store massive amounts of structured or unstructured data is the key to...
WinDirStat and Windows File Management
This week we want to cover a utility that allows users to manage the buildup of files that eat up space on your storage device. We are speaking about WinDirStat, which is a tool that presents a graphical view of your entire storage drive (or from a folder level)....
CAPA: A Review of 21 C.F.R. §820.100 and FDA Warning Letter Trends
SPK and Associates routinely review warning letters to help our clients stay in step with FDA trends. One of the problem areas most often cited in company audits continue to be the CAPA system/program. This month we will take a look at some of the latest FDA...
Design Output: A Review of 21 C.F.R. §820.30(d) and FDA Warning Letter Trends
Design Output: A Review of 21 C.F.R. §820.30(d) and FDA Warning Letter Trends
Static Analysis: Improving Quality by Finding Coding Issues As Soon As Possible
Many companies utilize static analysis tools in some fashion. However, we often find they are not leveraging them to their fullest potential. At SPK and Associates, we believe in driving quality up front, at the Engineering Desktop, and not relying solely on finding...
5 Things You Can Do To Make Your Software More Attractive To Medical Device Companies
Improve Your Ability to Sell Software into Medical Device Companies – In this paper we will share five things you can do to make your software application more attractive to medical device companies.