“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” - Mr. Fred Rogers
To the Dragon Innovation Community,
As we all confront this global crisis, I understand these are challenging times filled with uncertainty, so I wanted to reach out to the community at large to communicate what Dragon Innovation is doing during this unprecedented time.
Successfully manufacturing a new hardware product is hard enough under ideal circumstances. With the addition of COVID-19, things have become more challenging by an order of magnitude.
Prior to starting Dragon Innovation, I spent 10 years at iRobot leading the manufacturing team for the Roomba. Believing so strongly in high bandwidth communication, I moved to China for four years to be as close to the factory as possible. This decision proved invaluable and allowed us to overcome many more obstacles than we could have remotely.
Building on these experiences, at Dragon we have always emphasized that the most important area to focus on in manufacturing is communication. This assertion is now being put to the test as a result of travel restrictions limiting in-person meetings, and I’m pleased to see how the entire hardware community has come together to support each other and share best practices.
Here are 3 things we’re doing today to help support our community and our customers:
- Following global WHO guidelines and Avnet protocol to ensure the safety of our team at Dragon Innovation and partners, both domestically and globally.
- Communicating directly with the Dragon Innovation team and partners domestically and globally to determine alternative supply chain solutions, along with the up to the minute capacity and capabilities of Contract Manufacturers in the Far East, APAC, EU, and the US.
- Stationing Far East Dragons onsite at factories in China during challenging travel restrictions to protect our customers’ production schedules and provide feet on the factory floor.
Overall we understand what a challenge this is for us all and are aiming to do our part to help. We hope that you all are staying safe and healthy. If we can help in any way or if you have additional questions feel free to email us at [email protected].
Warmly,
Scott
P.S. We recognize this is an evolving situation so we've created a list of open source projects and resources you can access and contribute to here.
