One of the reasons for the success of NRK is their development philosophy. “We try to write things into our software that benefit everyone. There are lots of uses,” said Joe Calkins, co-founder. They also don’t wait until mid-year to release new versions of software. “Once you have your license key, you can download the latest enhancements to the software each week or month, or whenever you choose,” said Joe. If there’s a need to send the SpatialAnalyzer data to a non-subscriber, a “Viewer” or Read-Only version is available for download.

NRK’s goal is to keep the software development process customer driven. “Often, customers do not truly know what they want until they see an initial draft of their particularapplication. By proceeding forward with development in small steps, we’re able to craft our products to best meet customer expectations,” Calkins said.

“We wrote the code so that we can change a part without changing the whole thing, and we think that the right people are better than more people,” Joe said.

So NRK has a cohesive development team approach, which has the advantage of keeping the team small and precise. “Instead of throwing an army of programmers at a software task, we use a small team with extensive knowledge. In addition, our staff has an engineering background, which means we understand the actual engineering challenges our clients face,” Calkins said.

Having worked most of his career in IT, Director of Training, Gary Garrison, finds the company philosophy about software refreshing. “It’s so important to get software out in a timely manner. Sometimes, if it takes six months, it might be obsolete or the requestor might have moved on to another project. It absolutely helps our clients to provide them with solutions as soon as possible.”

Will Austin used to work for Newport News Shipbuilding in the Metrology Department, but now pursues his love of metrology as the customer relations contact for NRK. “We’re a very collaborative company, and are responsive pretty much around the clock. We have to be because our clients are all over the world and their workday is different than ours,” he said.

The shipyard got rid of confusing multiple software applications as it began to grow, and adopted SpatialAnalyzer as its measurement standard. “They embraced the technology, and now they can speak a common language, as they build a ship, work with another contractor or send information to a sister company,” Austin said.

Time is important to the industry—an early delivery time can make a great impression. “There’s nothing a shipyard can’t do with SA. When we needed help thinking outside the box or had a challenge, we’d call Joe at NRK,” Austin said. He’s the one to solve issues for clients—he finds a way or makes one.

The result of this development cycle and round-the-clock service is success for NRK and their customers. New River Kinematics has produced SpatialAnalzyer, which has changed the industry of portable metrology. The product and the company are a unique combination of success for their clients: a universal software solution and a responsive company to back it up.