Key Results:

• Successfully integrated WooCommerce for same-day sales order fulfillment and next-day shipping
• Streamlined floor operations with Katana Shop
• Improved communication and alignment between all team members

About Kron Technologies

Kron Technologies is a Canadian high-speed imaging system design and manufacturing company located in the heart of the Greater Vancouver Area (British Columbia, Canada). Kron Tech aims to make high-speed imaging accessible to everyone.

Kron’s target customers cover a broad spectrum – from cinematography and sports to research and industrial – anything one might want to have slowed down beyond the capability of the human eye – and see what is happening during a dynamic event.

What sets Kron Technologies apart is price, feature set and availability. Turnaround between an order being placed and shipped is on average 1-2 days, for both B2B and B2C customers. Katana allows Kron to ship worldwide the next day.

The Challenge

Before Katana, Kron used spreadsheets to manage inventory and production; however, it became unsustainable as the business grew and required a new solution.

As an electronics manufacturer, following raw materials inventory and component delivery times was crucial, particularly after the pandemic put stress on supply chains.

Kron knew an ERP system was needed before Covid, but hadn’t quite reached the tipping point. The pandemic surfaced various issues in the supply chain – shortage of components, delivery times – that served as a final push for getting visibility of stock, demand, and manufacturing processes.

The Solution

Jax Hughes, IT Manager, was tasked with ERP selection and implementation. After shopping around they found many of them either did not fit the workflows or were clunky to use.

Kron Technologies now uses Katana for order management, inventory visibility, and production on a daily basis.

• Operations Manager: Oversees the parts, logistics, and quality control of the products.
• Purchasing Manager: Responsible for supplier relationships, planning, and buying camera components.
• Logistics Coordinator: Managing the warehouse, deliveries, shipping, and receiving of cameras and parts.
• Production Technologists: Work on the shop floor to assemble, test, and debug the cameras, and assist customers with any support questions.

It was hard to find a solution that fit our needs as a small startup. Katana had the right look and feel for us.

Jax Hughes, IT Manager, Kron Technologies

Integration

Kron uses the WooCommerce platform for online sales and it’s integrated with Katana. As soon as a customer makes an order in WooCommerce, the Sales Associate makes sure the order has all the necessary information and an approved payment from the buyer before releasing it to Katana.

Most e-commerce platforms are built for selling high-volume, relatively low-price products. Kron sells high value products in larger quantities and Sales requires documentation such as end-use statements and other prerequisites for the sale. WooCommerce has been the optimal solution, and connecting it to Katana was pretty flawless.

Order fulfillment with Katana

Once an order is placed through the website via WooCommerce, it shows up in Katana as a Sales Order. When the Sales Associate has ensured that the order has all the necessary information, such as tax ID, documentation, and payment, they create a Make Order in Katana and trigger the production workflow.

The operations team picks all necessary items for the camera, then they create another order for the camera assembly. Kron is make-to-order, so when the Make Order is created, the finished product shows up as “not available” and alerts our Production Technologists – they get assigned tasks for assembly, testing, and calibration.

Production usually takes 1-2 business days, and once the order is completed, the finished camera will show up as available and ready for shipping. The Logistics Manager then takes care of a waybill and shipping documentation and gets the carrier partner to pick up the order. Once it’s delivered to the customer, it gets marked as delivered in Katana.

Real-Time Task Management With ‘Katana Shop Floor App’

Kron Technologies also uses the Katana Shop Shop Floor App to assist in their production, task management, and preparation for shipping. For production, they use it for two different types of order processing – based on sales orders, and for subassemblies.

Kron uses the shop floor app in a couple of different places – in production to manage the tasks once the Sales Associate has created Make Order, and for subassemblies which we create in batches. For example, we’ll have tasks assigned to our production technicians to build camera fronts, including a sensor and other components.

Kron has developed another workflow with the Katana Shop Floor App – a pre-shipping check for the ready orders. Once the camera assembly is done, they collect the rest of the items for shipping (e.g. cables), and a new operation is added to the manufacturing order called “Check” that enables them to check whether all items, such as the correct plug for the order, is selected.

Multi-currency Support for Sales and Purchasing

A software that lacked multi-currency support would be a dealbreaker for Kron Technologies. As a Canadian company, Kron manages stock and expenses in Canadian dollars while buying in USD. With Katana, Kron can effortlessly buy and sell products in any currency with daily rate conversion.

Team Communication

Communication between the growing team members has become more streamlined as well, adding visibility throughout the whole product lifecycle and organization.

Previously, it was hard to see how many orders were open in the moment, and how many were completed and delivered. Another aspect was more team members coming on board. They were pushing for a system in place that would help reduce errors and improve transparency.

Synchronizing spreadsheets and manual data entry between sales and operations teams are a thing of the past. All orders get verified and aligned automatically.

Next-day Shipping and Complete Overview of the Manufacturing Process

Even though the implementation of Katana has been a relatively recent project, Kron Technologies has already experienced significant improvements across the whole organization. The Sales page in Katana let’s Kron see what everybody is doing real-time. We immediately know which customers are in the pipeline.

As a high-value, lower-volume product manufacturer, it’s imperative to have a clear overview of the inventory and sales demand. Managing stock is critical. Having a solution that gives clear visibility over what is available, what is running low, and what needs to be restored is vital to ensure next-day shipping for the client.

Customer: University of Saskatchewan
Use Case: Research & Development
Needs: Observe plasma spokes

Challenge:

Observing plasma spokes that form during a High-Power Impulse Magnetron discharge (HiPIMS) which evolve on a scale of microseconds and require a high-speed camera to capture.

The spokes are caused by instability in high-density magnetized plasmas, specifically, Hall effect thrusters and HiPIMS plasmas. It has been experimentally observed that the rate of
diffusion of electrons across the magnetic field is higher than predicted, this discrepancy is known as the anomalous electron transport. It is believed that the spokes contribute to this but that they needed to be observed to validate the hypothesis.

Solution:

A Chronos 1.4 monochrome camera running at 15,941 frames per second was used to capture several frames per discharge.

Due to the extremely fast response of the magnetron discharge a variable delay circuit was developed to trigger the camera to capture thousands of images from different pulses of the magnetron but at the ‘same’ time relative to the start of the discharge. MATLAB was used to programmatically process each frame to identify the spokes.

This process let the University of Saskatchewan study the spokes with a high degree of measurement. They were able to identify the number of spokes, the size of each spoke, and track how they evolved over time on average. This could not have been observed without a high-speed camera.

Summary:

Scientific research and development, specifically in the areas of physics and engineering require precise measurement during experimentation. Chronos high-speed cameras provide the high-frame rates, resolution, and accessibility required by demanding labs today.

Learn more about Alex Chang’s thesis through his paper published by University of Saskatchewan