[HN Gopher] Show HN: Inventhub - Electronics product design coll...
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Show HN: Inventhub - Electronics product design collaboration
platform
Author : usamaabid
Score : 12 points
Date : 2021-03-18 20:54 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (inventhub.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (inventhub.io)
| pedalpete wrote:
| Congrats on the launch Usama.
|
| We're new to hardware development, but our hardware engineer has
| been using Altium 360, and I've been using Eagle for parts of the
| project.
|
| Altium seems like a VERY capable tool. I don't know about it's
| version control, but commenting , BOMs, component library, it has
| all of that stuff.
|
| We're based in Sydney, Australia, and I know Altium has an office
| here, so perhaps that's why we hear about Altium so much, but I'm
| curious what is the big differentiator between InventHub and
| Altium, as it seems they have the same features you list.
| usamaabid wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| Definitely, Altium is a very capable tool for electronics
| design. I totally agree the features like commenting, BOMs,
| component library is in Altium 365.
|
| With regards to differentiator, first being we support same
| tools and utilities for all formats (Eagle, Altium, KiCAD,
| PADS, OrCAD and Allegro). The Altium 365 is tied to just their
| ecosystem is specific to just managing single file PCB
| projects. Whereas, with inventhub you have flexibility to
| manage data however you want, it let you go beyond storing
| designs or components or visualizing in the web (e.g. adding
| specs documentation, instruction manuals in the project, or
| attaching more data to components like your internal stock for
| reference)
|
| - Inventhub let you have consistency in the process of
| development and gives you a single space to manage all kind of
| data.
|
| - Secondly, its all in the cloud, today it gives you single
| source to maintain data (for all ECADS). With inter-portability
| between formats we take reusability of trusted designs and
| assets a step ahead.
|
| - With our version control the collaboration is effective and
| it coupled with the the utilizes let's you focus on just the
| design and development vs. figuring out how to configure.
|
| Do let me know if this answers your question and give you the
| understanding of differentiating factor. I would be happy to
| jump on a call to walk you through the platform with use-case
| as well.
| etimberg wrote:
| Love to see this. Having worked in the EDA space (I built
| multisim.com) it's nice to see modern tooling coming and
| hopefully open file parsers, etc.
|
| Are you planning to add something like GitHub actions? My
| thinking being that there's a lot of DRC that happens on PCB
| designs that could be automated into a CI.
| usamaabid wrote:
| Thank you! we love your product too and have been following
| along. We definitely are building rule checker with our feature
| custom rule checking and DRC checker on two levels.
|
| The first level is to be implemented on every design update
| upload, to check DRC, ERC and custom rules defined by the
| company in the form of a script.
|
| Second is to have a runtime checker like CI to run rule checks
| on production/pre-production builds (including DRC, ERC and
| again custom rules/industry standard compliances etc.)
|
| We are moving forward with the goal of having an open parser, a
| universalized parsing language for all formats to be
| generalized in and build utilities on top. Thinking beyond just
| ECAD leading into, EDA and eventually MCAD.
|
| We envision Inventhub to eventually become a design data
| dashboard, letting you pull say simulation data, production QA
| data, gaining more insights beyond just visualization with
| cross-platform integration and open API for more utilities.
| usamaabid wrote:
| Hello,
|
| I am Usama, Founder & CEO of inventhub.io, a platform for
| securely managing and collaborating on electronics design data,
| is excited to announce a set of tools which provide an improved
| way for hardware companies to manage their PCB design projects
| and allow early collaboration on the data of those projects.
|
| Its been a year since I have posted an early version of Inventhub
| here on HackerNews
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22476514) with just a
| visual version control and couple of ideas. Over the year, we
| were able to work with hardware developers and electronics
| product teams to get feedback, improve product and add new
| features.
|
| We just recently launched a completely revamped product with a
| new website. Inventhub started as a git based version control
| with utilities to visualize ecad design and changes (diffs) in
| the web.
|
| In our new release we introduced a complete electronics product
| design data management and collaboration to enable true
| collaboration on PCB design projects. Tools and their benefits
| include:
|
| * Visualization and Discussions on PCB Documents: The design view
| of a pcb document on the platform helps in bringing a shared
| understanding where everyone has access to view, discuss and
| understand the document and its data. Inventhub supports
| visualization on formats such as Altium Designer, EagleCad, KiCad
| (more coming soon)
|
| * Git based version control and tools: Having one database is a
| single source of truth which allows everyone to work from the
| same single database that is updated with every change from
| everyone who has access to it. All data is accessible in a
| centralized and secure cloud space. The information is visible to
| everyone instantly with its history.
|
| * Access controls and sharing engineering data: Inventhub wants
| to help make it easy for the reusability of documents with
| multiple stakeholders. Organization access controls on the
| platform enable team based collaboration and sharing the latest
| version of the document and having access controls on top of it
| helps in early communication.
|
| * Release management and Manufacturer Space: Easily Create,
| Manage and share a release by marking a point in history of a
| version controlled project. A manufacturer space is provided in
| addition for accessibility of project and design data. This helps
| to communicate production details easily to external
| stakeholders.
|
| * Bill of Materials: Smart BOM brings a design-to-cost
| development approach. Create, edit and keep your bill of
| materials updated with every change in your project. With smart
| supply chain integration, find prices, generate cost estimates,
| get parts availability all in one place. This synchronized
| integration lets your team use the right parts and enable your
| procurement team to have up-to-date information at every stage.
|
| * Components Library Manager: Inventhub wants to make it easy to
| manage components libraries and their life-cycle in centralized
| cloud storage. This gives teams and organizations easy access to
| trusted reusable assets and adding supply chain integration on
| top gives designers and procurement teams to see real-time/up-to-
| date component life-cycle data, pricing and availability.
|
| I would really appreciate if you guys can look at the new website
| along with new product features and provide us with your
| feedback. We are keen to hear what do you guys think about the
| product now?
| contingencies wrote:
| Hi Usama. I think there is definitely potential in this space.
| Github has failed to deliver in this area and it is
| frustrating.
|
| First, you should consider IP. People who do this commercially
| don't want to put all their IP on an unknown platform. If you
| are hosting, you can make guarantees, you can be transparent
| about your identity, you can show audits, you can work to
| increase trust, right now none of that is present. An
| alternative option is a deployable on-premises solution.
|
| Second, a lot of money flows in this industry through iterative
| fabrication. You can work to tap that cashflow by integrating
| with fabricators. There is an opportunity to do the hard work
| for people in translating their BOM and design files to
| fabricator-anticipated formats, translating fabricator business
| process information (fulfillment times, design checks, etc.) in
| order to become a platform for iteration. This could be an
| awesome service in and of itself without the whole hosted
| design iteration thing.
|
| Third, component dealers. You can obtain forward-looking
| metrics about component selection from switched on component
| dealers, who can also allow people to secure rare stock through
| your platform. Some of these deals are very large.
|
| Basically, it's a chicken and egg problem. To get fabricators
| you need users. To get dealers you need users. To get users you
| need to add value while reducing risk and presenting a
| trustworthy and stable platform. Platform businesses are hard
| to build.
|
| Ultimately you may do well to reconsider your approach and
| instead of building a platform business just build the visual
| diff, BOM, fabricator DRC, fabricator order status and other
| industry-specific software components necessary for someone
| like Github to acquire you and roll out value to a large user
| base. This may be much quicker to return and a much larger
| return.
|
| Good luck.
| usamaabid wrote:
| Hi, Thank you for reviewing and giving such valuable
| feedback. I am glad you feel this way about the space.
|
| With regards to IP, we definitely ran into this concern
| couple of times. To address this we are in the process of
| getting SOC 2 Security Audit and post its report on the
| platform. Definitely agree on the identity part, will
| definitely have it up soon. We have the on-premise version in
| our roadmap for Q2 this year.
|
| This is an interesting insight about iterative fabrication.
| We are thinking along these lines, for manufacturer space
| e.g. generating and translating the BOM and design files
| fabricator anticipated formats within Inventhub from source
| files. - Adding manufacturers directly into the partner space
| for placing order could be an added revenue source. We can
| probably come up with a utility that facilities manufacturers
| with their work and have them connect with our user-base.
| (Like cost estimation utility from source files etc). Agreed
| on the part of generating revenue from connecting customers
| and manufacturers within the platform.
|
| - We did build a basic supply chain integration in the BOM to
| help user find parts from multiple component dealers, compare
| prices and choose the best one. Will definitely look into the
| rare stock supply.
|
| - I agree, we did consider building an add-on to github or
| gitlab, but overtime we have ran into some engineering
| problems that made us realize it has to be done ground up.
| Also, the future vision we have does make more sense for us
| to host data on our platform. We did engineer the
| architecture in a way to port the utilizes to any git under-
| base to keep this acquisition door open. This is not a
| priority though with where we see ourselves headed though.
|
| Thank you so much again for sharing your feedback.It is
| indeed really helpful.
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(page generated 2021-03-18 23:01 UTC)