While many lament that some of our best engineering skills have left the country, it has been my experience that the really capable individuals have merely left larger enterprises and have put their skills back to work in a self-controlled and innovative environment. A case in point is Kreon Technology, which was registered in 1993 by a group of five engineers but basically began its real life in 1997 when one of this group, Nick Pieters, resigned from Kentron. He was soon joined by a previous colleague Leon van Tonder and today those two, together with Nico de Jager, are the owners and directors of Kreon, a business that currently employs seven full time electronic development engineers, with plans to grow that to twelve by the end of next year.
During 1999 Kreon moved into new premises in Persequor Techno Park in Pretoria. Now just two years later the company has more than outgrown its available space and will move into new premises in the same Technopark by the end of August. The fivefold increase in floor area will allow the company to establish a well equipped and laid out production facility.
Kreon has niched itself into the very high end of the technology spectrum and its core area of expertise is embedded DSP (Digital Signal Processing) software and hardware. Their niche is the software, algorithms and hardware design for high tech DSP. A major advantage offered by the company is that they do not represent any component suppliers and they can provide the customer with the solution that best suits their requirements through their own in-depth knowledge of products from Texas Instruments, Intel, Dallas, Xilinx, Altera and Analog Devices to name but a few. Naturally they maintain a good and very close relationship with the local suppliers both to get the best possible prices, technical support and advance information regarding new devices and obsolescence of others.
As a high tech company it is natural to find that the main customer base of Kreon is still the defence sector, and of course all of their personnel have had experience of this sector and its special demands in terms of MIL specifications. Their software, hardware and systems engineers have up to 16 years' experience in their respective fields.
One of the many successful products developed by Denel Kentron is the Ingwe anti-armour guided missile. Here Kreon has become the design authority for the CPU board used in the electronics pack and its associated software under contract from Kentron. Kreon also developed the missile's datalogger ('Black Box') that records all vital missile parameters during its flight. Kreon is particularly proud of the fact that the Black Box has survived many live firings of the missile and according to Leon van Tonder the biggest problem is locating it after the detonation of the high explosive warhead.
Kreon is also involved with another of Kentron's successful missile developments, namely Mokopa, which was developed for use on the Rooivalk helicopter. For Mokopa Kreon again supplies a high burst rate data recording device, which is integrated into the missile launcher during development on the helicopter. Once again used for critical data capture, Windows NT can be used for data uploading and graphical presentation.
Although most new Kreon developments are customer-specific the company always looks at possibilities beyond this. One example of this is their generic ruggedised high capacity data recorder. Although developed in its original form for a military application its capabilities are such that it would be equally at home in many of the more aggressive industrial environments and I/O features have been designed accordingly.
The company has also expanded its defence business beyond South Africa's borders and has developed a missile interface unit that links the missile electronics to the aircraft avionics system. This allows the seeker head in the missile to be directed at the chosen target. This interface unit was developed from scratch for a relatively elderly aircraft type and has now been fully qualified. It is now being fully evaluated by the overseas airforce before going into production.
In terms of manufacturing Kreon subcontracts the entire PCB assembly and adds its own real value through programming and testing of the boards and systems. Being involved right from the concept phase allows Kreon to develop its own test equipment and allows it to ensure that every board and device meets the required specifications. For some time now Kreon has been developing its own internal written standards for software and hardware development as well as production. These standards are the first step in the process of achieving certification to the ISO 9000:2000 quality standard which is expected to occur during 2002.
Kreon is moving from strength to strength and its turnover has been increasing by more than 100% annually. The current upswing in the local defence industry and the technological spin-offs of this high tech business will benefit the business significantly. More important is the fact that the company has now established a strong capital base that it can use to fund its own developments (such as the generic data recorder mentioned above) and the rights to manufacture these products on a high volume basis could be transferred to other local electronics companies.
For further information contact Leon van Tonder (012) 349 2646, or see www.kreon.co.za
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