Lesson Three: Don't Redesign the Wheel

We spent a lot of time trying to develop our own software, and design our own circuitry.  We have staff competent in those areas, and more than likely could have gone that route, in twice as much time!  All of these good products were already out there waiting to be combined.  We only had to look around and figure out how to put the puzzle together.  A mechanic doesn't build a new carburetor for the car he is fixing, he orders one predesigned and prebuilt.  As engineers and technicians, it is easy to get caught in the trap of "what you can do versus what is practical to do".

Once we decided that we could do it all with outside components, it became a much easier project to tackle, and the engineering had, for the most part, been done for us.