Innovation Awards 2015

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GREATER FORT WAYNE

Business Weekly 3306 Independence Drive Fort Wayne, IN 46808 (260) 426-2640 Fax: (260) 426-2503 www.fwbusiness.com

Randy Mitchell randymitchell@kpcmedia.com Publisher

Lucretia Cardenas lcardenas@kpcmedia.com Editor

Linda Lipp llipp@kpcmedia.com Associate Editor/Reporter

Aimee Ambrose aambrose@kpcmedia.com Reporter

Doug LeDuc dleduc@kpcmedia.com Reporter

Claudia Johnson cjohnson@kpcmedia.com Marketing Manager

Ann Saggars asaggars@kpcmedia.com Creative Manager

Mark Davis mdavis@kpcmedia.com Multi-media Sales Manager

Tracey Robideau Graphic Designer

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES

Mark Davis Nathan Hensley Bobbi Jenks Wendy Krzyanowski Nate Woenker George O. Witwer Publisher Emeritus

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

Innovative ideas inspire The Innovation Awards provide us time to learn about a number of fascinating businesses, ideas and people in our greater Fort Wayne community.

The awards n give Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly the honor to present these companies to the general public and shed light on their inventions and revelations.

We relish this opportunity to do this and hope these companies’ successes will spur others to pursue their business pursuits that push the boundaries of traditional practices.

This year, the judges heard from innovative companies that have brought new products to market as a result of using technology in an inventive way, breaking industry paradigms or collaborating with others to join forces and move a concept forward.

The public and the businesses themselves nominated our finalists. Each

LUCRETIA CARDENAS

finalist had the opportunity to present their innovative product or process to our judges who whittled the pool down to a top three.

From the top contenders, the judges evaluated who was being innovated in more than one way to choose a winner. The decision was tough as the contenders were all innovative and unique in their own ways.

Recognizing these companies would not be possible without the support of our event sponsors PHP and Lake City Bank, our title sponsor Northeast Indiana Innovation Center and our contributing sponsor Indiana SignWorks.

Also, making our featured companies and individuals look good in print and video is IN Fort Wayne’s Ray Steup.

In addition, our Marketing Director Claudia Johnson coordinates with all of the nominees, sponsors, venue and editorial to ensure we, as a business community, can celebrate these companies in style.

We thank you for taking time to learn more about our Innovation Awards recipients and we hope you are inspired to become the next innovator in northeast Indiana.

Terry Housholder President

Randy Mitchell Chief Executive Officer

S. Rick Mitchell Chief Financial Officer

Andy Eads Advertising Director

Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly is a publication of KPC Media Group Inc. ©2015 All rights reserved

Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

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A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO ALL OUR SPONSORS

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Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

That’s a concept we’ve whole-heartedly embraced.

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Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Letter from the Editor ......................................... 1 Thank you to our sponsors................................ 2 Table of Contents .............................................. 4 eXcellon Technologies Inc............................... 6 David Augustine, Stryke Industries .................. 7 Luke Hoffman, Granite Ridge Builders ............ 8 Dawn Studebaker, The Game Annex ............. 10 Stacey Holifield, Levitate .................................. 11 John Finch, PRP Technologies LLC ................... 12 Ralph Marcuccilli, Allied Payment Network ... 13 Extension Healthcare ........................................ 14 John Fitch, Systems Process Inc ...................... 15 Hall of Fame ....................................................... 16 ALL PHOTOS WERE TAKEN BY RAY STEUP. Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

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Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

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EMERGING COMPANY EXCELLON TECHNOLOGIES INC.

Breaking the mold at every level

BY LUCRETIA CARDENAS lcardenas@kpcmedia.com

Innovation can occur on a number of different levels – designing a new product, implementing an original process, connecting ground-breaking ideas with the marketplace or breaking industry paradigms.

Most companies focus on one of these areas to generate success. Excellon Technologies Inc. is striving to master all of them.

The nearly 14-year-old company, owned by Claude and Jill Sparks, is a solution specialist. Through its twice weekly think tanks, it brings companies – even competitors – together to solve problems faced by manufacturers.

Based in Fort Wayne, Excellon prides itself in being “a very transparent company,” General Manager Jim Hawthorne said. Each Tuesday and Wednesday morning, companies are invited to Excellon to take a look at what Excellon is working on, offer suggestions and expertise and find ways to work together. It’s through the think tank sessions that Excellon develops the strategic partnerships and connections that allow it to quickly solve customers’ problems and address unmet needs.

In its two manufacturing facilities, it develops and produces custom interconnects, cable and harness assemblies, sensor assemblies, kitting, direct-current motors, custom manufacturing and prototypes.

Its customers include the U.S. Army, Flint &Walling Inc., Ultra Electronics-USSI, New York City Transit, Dana Corp. and BAE Systems, among others.

In addition, Excellon is launching a retail shop at its 1109 Sherman Blvd. location for its CapeAble Sensory products. The capes, blankets, shawls and other garment accessories incorporate weights, which are evenly distributed. The result is deep pressure applied to the muscles, joints, tendons and Page 6

Jim Hawthorne

ligaments which, the company says, allows the central nervous system to better interpret and integrate various sensory inputs. As a result, users of CapeAble are calmed and soothed.

Hawthorne used stress an example.

Stress frequently causes an individual’s neck to tighten. By applying pressure by using a CapeAble product, the neck will loosen, he said, and a person should gain better focus and ability.

Another product the company recently developed is a pill cutter. The simple plastic device allows a person to easily and safely cut a pill in half by placing the pill in the box and, then, closing the box lid. The product addresses a need among individuals with Parkinson’s. By meeting with its think tank, Excellon was able to develop a solution to the predicament an individual shaking due to a disease faces when trying to cut a pill in half, Hawthorne said.

“The marketplace for the medical industry is just vast,” he said.

But those are examples of the innova-

tion the public sees.

Behind the scenes, Excellon is focused on building an environment that not only fosters growth for its bottom line but also creates a dependable employer for its 72 employees.

“Our focus is hiring people – taking care of families,” Hawthorne said.

With this strategy in play, Excellon expects to add 415 jobs in less than three years, he said. The company is creating mentorship programs so that employees have positions to aspire too and turnover remains low.

Hawthorne takes the company’s commitment to employees seriously.

When it snows, he personally cleans off each employee’s vehicle to save them the trouble when they end their days.

Providing an opportunity for employees to excel at what they do best is what Excellon views as its driving force. This, in addition to its transparency with its competitors and customers, are what make it an innovative company on multiple levels.

Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

EMERGING COMPANY DAVID AUGUSTINE, STRYKE INDUSTRIES

Striking a connection with disruptive technologies

BY LUCRETIA CARDENAS lcardenas@kpcmedia.com

Stryke Industries is upfront about what it is not – door openers, traditional consultants or retainer-driven strategists.

The nearly two-year-old company is aiming for the difficult projects, those that test the boundaries of the status quo. Its goal is to pair these “disruptive defense technologies” with the government, primarily the Department of Defense, and other prime contractors.

“We are a highly specialized development firm,” said David Augustine, Stryke’s senior president of business development, who is also a retired Air National Guard colonel.

Stryke prides itself on teaming with companies, entrepreneurs and innovators who have “game-changing” technologies that will primarily benefit the defense industry. While technologies use to steadily flow from the federal government level to the commercial sector, Augustine argues that the process has reversed in recent years as less government funding is being invested in defense research programs.

“Out job is to build businesses,” he said.

Its clients include Logikos Inc., Enzyme Solutions Inc. and Scorpion Computer Services, among others.

Within a year, Stryke grew from one team member in the additive manufacturing space to 16 team members. Soon, the company will employ 20. Through its strategic hiring, the company has quickly developed connections and partnerships with the defense industry, Augustine said.

The company focuses on technologies in the following areas: • Combat comforts, such as sleep, cooling and energy; • Medical, such as embedded drug delivery chips, enzyme cleaning solutions and exothermic materials; • Human factors, such as wearable systems;

Van Flamion

• Environmental and energy, such as energy storage and waste recycling; • Vehicles, such as dramatic engine designs and light weighting; • Automation, such as cyber security and IT software and systems development; • Warfighter Health, such as mental health assessments and tele-treatment; • Social media, such as future predictive analytics; and • Foreign military sales.

The company’s CEO is Tobias Buck,

who co-founded the company with Van Flamion.

Buck also founded Pierceton-based Paragon Medical, which manufactures orthopedic medical devices, and has experience working in the aerospace and automotive industries.

Flamion serves as Stryke’s president.

Prior to joining Stryke, Flamion served as Paragon’s vice president of global development services. He also has previous work experience in the aerospace and automotive industries.

Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

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REAL ESTATE/CONSTRUCTION/DESIGN LUKE HOFFMAN, GRANITE RIDGE BUILDERS

Home, sweet high-tech home

BY LINDA LIPP llipp@kpcmedia.com

Granite Ridge Builders’ high-touch, high-tech home at 7467 Flutter Road was designed not only meet its occupants’ needs, but to anticipate them.

Key in a code to gain access, and the door will open to the scene the entrant previously selected: bright or low light, blinds open or closed, oven preheating for cooking, air temperature preference and a choice of music or favorite TV station playing. The programmable shower allows the user to select water pressure, temperature and choice of jets by tapping a single key. And, while the house won’t open a door to let the dog out while the owner is away, it will allow the owner to remotely track where the dog is from a smart phone or tablet.

The Energy Star and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certified house, which has nearly 6,000 square feet of space under roof, also produces all the electrical power it needs on site through its solar-powered systems. It does it all without looking like some futuristic cartoon structure the Jetsons would live in.

“We didn’t want to sacrifice the look and aesthetic of the home,” said Luke Hoffman, who managed the project for Granite Ridge. “We wanted people to walk into that home and truly fall in love with it based on its looks.”

Other than the solar panels on the roof – which actually allow the net-zero home to produce and bank energy with the power company – most of the home’s energy innovations aren’t obvious to the casual observer.

Insulation keeps the envelope tight, lighting fixtures use LED bulbs and many of the furnishings incorporate green and/or recycled and reclaimed materials. The home’s open-link geothermal system pumps water from deep in the ground to aid in heating and cooling, then uses it to gives a boost Page 8

Luke Hoffman

to the water heating system and finally pumps it outside to a pond where it can be drawn on for irrigation.

The house, which Granite Ridge officially calls its NextSTEP (smart technology and energy performance) but unofficially refers to as its “milliondollar project,” was more than three years in the planning and building.

The inspiration came from President Tony Reincke, “who gave us permission to dream outside the box about a project that would incorporate energy efficient ideas – specifically solar – smart technology and all kinds of home innovations under one roof,” said Lonnie Norris, vice president of sales.

Choice Designs Inc. partnered on the interior design and furnishings, while Clare Controls and Verizon Wireless

assisted with home security, automated lighting, audio and appliance control – all operable from a tablet or smart phone.

The project also got a lot of help from the company’s 100 employees, who were offered incentives for suggestions that would make it better.

“We said, ‘If you see an idea out there, bring it to us and maybe we’ll incorporate it,’” Norris said. “We got a ton of input. The ideas just poured in.”

New home buyers might not want to invest in all the things the house can do, but being able to experience them first hand helps increase awareness and acceptance of the new technologies available.

“The home building industry is kind of the last frontier that technology hasn’t changed,” Hoffman said.

Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

A SPECIAL THANK YOU TO ALL OUR JUDGES LUCRETIA CARDENAS Editor Greater Fort Wayne Business Weekly

NATHAN JOHN STEPHENSON Sales Manager Cannon Solutions America, Inc. JERRY HILL General Manager Strategic Business Technologies

Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

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RETAIL DAWN STUDEBAKER, THE GAME ANNEX

Rolling the dice on a game store concept

PHOTO CONTRIBUTED

BY AIMEE AMBROSE aambrose@kpcmedia.com

In a corner storefront on Fort Wayne’s southwest side, the Game Annex gives gamers reign to go head-tohead, dice-to-dice and card-to-card over a variety of tabletop games.

These aren’t your mainstream, popular board games like Monopoly, Sorry or Clue. These are niche games based on role-playing experiences that transport players to fantasy worlds, into history or into pop culture realms.

The business isn’t the first in the area to sell such games or offer space for gaming activities. Where Game Annex stands out is the philosophy of owners Dawn and Scott Studebaker: To create an experience that values social interactions in an open and inclusive environment based on building quality of life.

“We are a community, more than just a retail shop,” Dawn Studebaker said. “I wanted something where everyone felt Page 10

welcome. Everybody comes, everyone feels welcome.”

The location is set up primarily to give patrons opportunities to experience different games. While games and accessories are for sale, she didn’t want to run her business in a way that the products are hands off and for-purchase only.

Instead, dozens of games are stacked on shelves for patrons to open up and play there at the store with other gamers.

The face-to-face time lets patrons unplug from video games and the Internet, and potentially make new friends, she believes.

“In this environment, it puts people around a table doing things they like,” she said. “I have some of the shyest people that come into this building, and they feel so at home.”

Customers can also rent games and try them out at home. The thinking is that iff they enjoy a game outside the store, they’ll return to buy a game or bring more people in to play.

The Game Annex opened nearly two years ago at a commercial building near Jefferson Pointe. After the first year, the store expanded and doubled in size, Studebaker said.

About a quarter of the space is dedicated to retail operations. Several tables occupy the other three quarters where players can set up and enjoy games.

The store is family-friendly, but it’s not geared toward children. Studebaker views the business as a place for older gamers, an alternative hangout to other social or entertainment establishments.

“It’s a place for a gamers to go and socialize,” she said.

The Studebakers pooled their backgrounds to open Game Annex. Scott started gaming in 1992, while Dawn is relatively new to the activity, she said.

But Dawn’s past experience in sales complements Scott’s passion for gaming, helping them to take their business beyond retail and into a place where play-time rules.

Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES STACEY HOLIFIELD, LEVITATE

Raising the bar for messaging

BY LINDA LIPP llipp@kpcmedia.com

Stacey Holifield, the owner and founder of Levitate, doesn’t do what she refers to as “old school” public relations.

The service she offers instead is strategic communications. Before a company puts any messages out to the public, she believes it is vital to take a step back and think strategically about what it is saying to its customers – and competitors – and how and why it is saying it.

“You see people just kind of throw on PR or add it into advertising, but there isn’t that focus on digging into strategic messaging, really understanding stakeholders and the target audience, figuring out how to engage audiences and then connecting through the appropriate channels,” Holifield said.

After 15 years of doing public relations in the more traditional way, mostly in Boston, Holifield decided to move back to Fort Wayne and do it in her own way. She founded Levitate in January and now assists clients from coast to coast from her home.

“I wanted to work with companies and help them kind of take a step back, stop box-checking marketing…really create efficient and effective campaigns that are results-oriented,” she said.

It is an approach that has been lacking here, and it is often a process that business owners and executives have a hard time getting their heads around, she said.

“There’s a lot of emotional attachment into the way people have done things before,” she said.

For example, Holifield will start by interviewing key employees of a client firm and asking what three things customers and competitors should think of when they hear that company’s name.

The results, she finds, are the employees come up with a long list they can’t whittle down to three, or they can’t come

Stacey Holifield

up with much of anything.

What’s more, she can interview 10 people at the same firm and come up with a wide variety of responses.

“If you internally don’t know what you want your customers and your competitors to be thinking about when they hear your name, it’s impossible to think that any of your communications efforts are in alignment and are effective,” Holifield said.

It’s also about putting the emphasis on the customers’ needs and their reasons for buying a company’s products or services.

“It’s never about what we can do as a company, it’s about what we can do that meets the needs and fixes the problem for our customers – really reshaping communications around that framework, finding key key messages that are going to resonate,” she said.

Holifield has worked with a lot of health care related companies, but also has clients in technology, financial and other professional services. She calls on subcontractors as needed to develop and implement strategies, and plans to hire her first-full time employee by January.

Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

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HEALTH CARE/BIOSCIENCE JOHN FINCH, PRP TECHNOLOGIES LLC

Wound technology that mends naturally

BY LUCRETIA CARDENAS lcardenas@kpcmedia.com

An old adage says the best ideas are borrowed, and that rings true for Fort Wayne-based PRP Technologies LLC. About seven years ago, John Finch acquired the technology of BeluMedix based in Little Rock, Ark. On this technology, developed by Charles Worden, Dennis Hendren and Dr. David Jolly, Finch built PRP Technologies, which specializes in animal wound care.

PRP stands for platelet rich plasma.

Today, PRP’s products are marketed through QuadraCure – The Wound Care Solution. Finch serves as executive vice president of product development for the

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company and Jolly remains a consultant to the company.

QuadraCure defines itself as “a cutting edge veterinarian biotechnology company cultivating products for both large and small animals.”

The main goal of PRP and QuadraCure is to provide cost-effective, innovative technologies in wound care treatment for veterinarian care centers.

The company’s Lacerum branded products include a wound cleanser, finish cream and a desiccated powder.

The company company continues to develop new products to compete its wound-care line and is working to produce a disinfectant spray, antimicrobial eyewash, ear cleanser and medicated

shampoo.

The company’s products are tissue-sensitive and encourage the growth of new cells, reducing healing time. In addition, the products contain antibacterial and antifungal agents.

The company stresses that its products are non-toxic and they assist in an animal’s natural healing process.

The products cater to a growing demand in the animal health care market, Finch said, based on a market discovery challenge conducted by SearchLite.

In addition to PRP’s ongoing research, the company continues to work on approvals for its products from “the respective governing bodies on an international basis.”

Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

TECHNOLOGY RALPH MARCUCCILLI, ALLIED PAYMENT NETWORK

Quick, easy bill payments is company’s goal

BY DOUG LEDUC dleduc@kpcmedia.com

Fort Wayne-based Allied Payment Network gained a national profile in the banking industry through its Picture Pay product.

The company rolled out Picture Pay in 2013, and among the clients it attracted that year was Three Rivers, a community credit union in Fort Wayne with more than 67,000 members and $750 million in assets at the time.

Since launching the product, Allied secured agreements to use it with 110 financial institutions and has continued to develop a portfolio of mobile applications designed to revolutionize the way consumers and businesses interact with their money and connect with those financial partners.

Technology allowing individuals to make a deposit by taking a picture of a check became widespread earlier this decade, but paying bills that way was still relatively new at the time of Allied’s launch.

In addition to the deposit capability, the Picture Pay app includes options that allow users to specify an amount and a date for payment of a photographed bill. For bills that are paid in the same amount on the same date each month, there is an option that can use information from the photo to set up an automatic monthly payment.

Banks and credit unions offering Picture Pay can customize the user interface to match the platform the institution already has in place for mobile and Internet banking. In addition, Allied can provide the institutions with analytic tools that can help them use Picture Pay to cross-sell their other products.

Picture Pay photos do not just sit on the phone once they’re taken; they go into a secure server in a secure data center.

“We have a very secure system, a very secure protocol that we use with

Ralph Marcuccilli

all of our resellers of the product, our many financial institutions, and we have the utmost security around that,” Ralph Marcuccilli, president of Allied, said in a presentation explaining what it does.

Last year the company began making an optional “picture vault” feature available as a convenient way to keep digital copies of documents safe in the cloud. The feature will work with scanned documents uploaded to its cloud storage from any computer, tablet or smartphone.

It also organizes those digital copies for quick, easy retrieval.

The company’s latest bundled

payment suite, released near the end of last year, is BizPay, a small business payments product, which enables organizations to pay bills, send payroll funds electronically, transfer funds to an external account and email electronic invoices.

BizPay can be implemented as a stand-alone product regardless of the bill pay system a financial institution is using for small businesses. Or, it can be used as part of an integrated suite including Picture Pay. Allied’s Picture Pay app is powered by the Mobile Photo Bill Pay technology of Mitek Systems.

Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

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TECHNOLOGY EXTENSION HEALTHCARE

Hospital alert software business booms

BY AIMEE AMBROSE aambrose@kpcmedia.com

Noise presents one of the myriad of challenges doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals face on the job at hospitals.

Much of the noise comes as a side effect of the modern technology used to treat and monitor patients. Machines hum and beep; they blare alarms and alerts when patients need immediate attention. All are clamoring as top priorities for care providers.

That’s where Extension Healthcare steps in.

The Fort Wayne-based company developed a software platform that organizes the cacophony to reduce what’s termed as “interruption fatigue.”

“It is a constant stream of people and technology trying to grab your attention,” said Extension CEO Todd Plesko. “It’s like a Las Vegas casino sometimes. And imagine working in that condition 45 hours a week or more.”

The Extension Engage platform interfaces with a hospital’s electronic health records, medical devices and other systems. It organizes the data and, through an intelligent rules system, sets priorities for alerts and their context to help clinicians decide which situation to address first.

The platform works through a mobile app compatible with every device on the market, Plesko said.

In a nutshell, clinicians on a hospital care team receive notifications, which include selectable ringtones, of patient alerts and their details. The alerts are organized in order of priority based on their details. Clinicians respond by clicking on an alert, and the information is shared with other team members.

“The moment you accept responsibility for an alarm, the care team is notified in a silent way,” he said.

The app also has a texting function Page 14

Todd Plesko

for team members to communicate with each other. The software pushes the communications in near-real time.

The software’s origins took root about nine years ago when Plesko, who formerly worked in healthcare information technology, and a partner brainstormed on a project to improve how healthcare providers used electronic health records.

“The initial idea was we wanted to marry the electronic health record and medical devices with the phone,” he said, pointing out this was in the pre-smartphone days.

As they got deeper into the project and improved their understanding of hospital workflows and noise, and with the advent of the iPhone, the platform evolved into its current format.

The software took off.

Extension grew an average of 89 percent since the company was founded

in 2009. Now, with more than 200 hospital customers nationwide, including all Lutheran Health Network facilities, Plesko expects a 140-percent growth this year.

“We’re spiking … We’re growing like wildfire. We’re hiring constantly,” he said.

The company has 165 employees.

About half work in Fort Wayne, mostly providing engineering services.

“Almost the entire innovation, the entire product – meaning about 98 percent of it – is built here in Fort Wayne,” he said.

The other half work throughout the country in sales and marketing.

Extension Engage is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration as a Class II medical device, meaning high risk.

Because of that, the platform faces strict quality controls in order to keep errors almost non-existent.

Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

TECHNOLOGY JOHN FITCH, SYSTEMS PROCESS INC

Breaking down the decision-making process

BY DOUG LEDUC dleduc@kpcmedia.com

Systems Process is focused on improving business decision making.

“We feel that the future is driven by decisions. You manage the decisions well, you have the opportunity for a much better future,” said Ron Carter, principal consultant for the Fort Wayne-based software company.

“We find that many organizations are struggling with the whole idea of how to manage the changes evolving around them and don’t really have the resources necessary to take that next step or figure out how to really advance and innovate and change in positive ways, so we developed a series of software tools designed specifically to address that.”

The web-enabled software tools provide a structured, collaborative, user friendly environment that allows a company to break down each of the decisions it faces in a constructive manner, Carter said. By allowing this type of input, new ideas emerge from what may have seemed like chaos.

The software allows clients to examine each of those decisions individually and gather input from all parties that need to weigh in on it internally and from all the external stake holders who need to be involved in the project, so that together they find success one decision at a time, he said.

Clients may find the tools useful because they are struggling with competition and they need to develop a new process or technology or approach to business that will give them an advantage. To do so, they need to manage all the factors affecting that project and the results it will produce.

By storing the contributions of people with key expertise, the tools enable companies to make crucial decisions in their absence, should that ever become necessary, Carter said.

In addition to the software tools, the company also offers consulting services

Ron Carter

such as software customization and integration, process design, project jump starts, decision driven methods training and knowledge pattern development and refinement.

The software was developed by the company’s president, John Fitch, a leading innovator in the field of decision management with more than 30 years of methods consulting and engineering management experience, Carter said.

Fitch was among the pioneers making the case for object-based software engineering, which helped set his decision improving software apart when he was developing a version of it for the

U.S. Department of Defense, he said.

His company has worked closely with the U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center in Warren, Mich., on the development of its next generation vehicles. Last year, Systems Process was awarded a $2 million, two-year contract in connection with the Army’s Rapid Innovation Fund.

The web service he started in 2008 to better commercialize what he was doing for the private sector has attracted clients such as The SearchLite, which provides business training, advisory and acceleration services, which it refers to as Market Application Landscape and Technology Adoption Dynamics.

Innovation Awards • November 2015 • fwbusiness.com • ©KPC Media Group Inc.

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INNOVATION AWARDS HALL OF FAME 2015 marks the 10th year Solstice Medical LLC the Greater Fort Wayne Tippmann Industrial Products Business Weekly has Inc. recognized companies and Star Financial Bank organizations from across the Basic Elements Design LLC region for their innovative ideas, Fort Wayne Outfitters and products and services. Past Bike Depot winners are: Intrasect Technologies Innovator of the Year — 2006 Solstice Medical LLC SensoryCritters.com BeniComp Group Inc.; Bank 2009 of Geneva DigitalHydraulic LLC Schwartz Biomedical StrokeCareNow Network Rubber Innovators LLC USCombatGear Foundation for Art and Financial Education Solutions Music in Elementary Education; MSKTD & Associates Inc. Science Central Build A Computer Digital AV TrustBearer Labs RealtyFlex Corporate LLC Innovator of the Year — Stop & Shred DigitalHydraulic LLC Zoom Information Systems Innovator of the Year — 2010 Rubber Innovators LLC Honor Education LLC OrthoPediatrics 2007 Whitley Steel Products & Sorbashock LLC Fabrication HomeFree Systems LLC; Summer’s Sky LLC Wells Fargo Pathfinder Services Inc. LacPro Industries LLC The Green ABC’s Superior Manufacturing, a Indiana Metropolitan Area division of Magnatech Corp.

Network Inc. DeSoto Translation & Innovator of the Year — Marketing Inc. Honor Education LLC NAI Harding Dahm Crazy Pinz 2011 Effect Web Media PYPline LLC Innovator of the Year — Be Adaptive Equipment LLC LacPro Industries LLC Tippmann Engineering Cirrus ABS 2008 Commercial Filter Service NewsMogul LLC Inc.

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Average Joe Artisan Bread LLC Group Dekko Innovator of the Year — Be Adaptive Equipment LLC 2012 OFabz Swimwear Rusher Medical LLC Mudd-Ox Inc. Lendingahand.net The Summit Annie Oakley Perfumery & Studio Allied Payment Network Innovator of the Year — Annie Oakley Perfumery & Studio 2013 Engine Research Associates Harbour Assisted Living Tuthill Corp.

GMS Distribution 3Rivers Federal Credit Union Rudy’sTechnology — Transwork Innovator of the Year — Engine Research Associates 2014 Indicator Memories of You League for the Blind and Disabled Fleet Feet Sports Fort Wayne Advanced Media Integration MKM Architecute & Design Innovator of the Year —3BG Supply Co. Innovator of the Year — Adaptek Systems Inc.

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