EMPHASIS OE is a young Information Technology (IT) firm, specialising
in the development and integration of applications for the transportation
and the distribution market sectors.
EMPHASIS activates in the following telematics applications segments
of the domestic market: Fleet Management systems, Telemetry applications
and WAP applications.
The firm currently employs six people and achieves annual turnover
of approximately 300KEUR. Fleet management systems market accounts for
the 50% of the total firm's turnover, Telemetry applications account
for 30% and WAP applications for 20%.
The firm has strong technical orientation and during the course of
its operations (since 1996), has acquired significant experience in
the areas of transportation management and telematics in acting as specialised
service provider, developer and small-scale producer of customised applications
and market specific products.
EMPHASIS competition includes firms established in the software/electronics/communication
integration field. Until now fleet management activity has no significant
domestic market competition while telemetry and WAP activities compete
in an already mature market.
In 1996, EMPHASIS introduced E-TRACK, an innovative fleet tracking
and management system providing two-way communications between vehicle
and centre of operations. The in-vehicle unit of the system collects
and makes available to the centre of operations data such as the geographical
position of the vehicle, the condition of the freight and other operational
data.
Prior to the application experiment, the firm had no experience in
microelectronics design and development. The objective of the application
experiment was to improve the electronics of the in-vehicle unit, which
was implemented on an industrial PC board, by using Microcontroller
and PLD technologies in order to reduce it's physical dimensions, physical
weight, power consumption and cost.
Microcontroller and PLD technologies were chosen because they comply
with the above requirements and, in comparison with other technologies
(FPGA, ASIC), allow for flexibility to specific customer requirements,
make prototyping easy during design development and keep the cost low
in relatively low-volume production quantities.
By taking full advantage of these technologies, EMPHASIS will be given
the opportunity to become more competitive from the technological point
of view, penetrate new market segments such as the small vehicle and
motorcycle/scooter fleet and finally introduce E-TRACK in the large
European Market.
The application experiment was completed in 11 months at a cost of
approximately 52,8 KEUR.
The payback period for the application experiment is estimated to
be less than 2,4 years and the return on investment within a 3,3-year
period (the estimated product life) about 129%.
Following the application experiment, EMPHASIS is now capable of undertaking
the incremental design of the improved product for other applications,
and the manufacture of the new product.
