8Climbs LLC is a Consulting Company

8Climbs LLC is managed by Mike Gifford.

Sample Programs and Products Developed Since 2014

Client: US Postal Service. Product: Specialized Wearable for Parcel Sorting and Routing

Activity: Program and business management for the development of a unique wearable mobile computing device for parcel handling and presence identification. Managed a team of developers (ID Design, Mechanical CAD, Firmware and Production software) including all worldwide suppliers taking the product from concept through production. This included specification refinement, conceptual design, 3D modeling and printing, plastics tooling, prototyping, sample deployments, user feedback and design tweaking, and then DFM (Design For Manufacturing) tooling. Manufacturing and testing we’re also included. Developers mostly in the N. California Bay Area, some vendors and sourcing located in Shenzhen, China. Tasks included several proposal preparations, negotiations and then production.

Client: Cognex / Manatee Works. Product: MX-100 Mobile Phone Bar Code Scanning Aimer

Client: Cognex Corporation / Manatee Works (Acquired by Cognex Aug 2015) 

Activity with Manatee Works: Formalized the Manatee Works (MW) bar code scanning worldwide developer network (5,000 companies/developers) and positioned the company for acquisition. Initial phases of the effort were focused on establishing MW as a leader at providing a world-class bar code scanning SDK (Software Development Kit) running on iOS, Android and numerous platforms and frameworks. Once completed, began the process of selecting possible companies that might have an interest in acquiring MW.

Activity with Cognex: Initiated a program to broaden Cognex’ mobile product line that included directly using mobile devices with the MW software SDK and its worldwide developer network. This included managing a team of developers both internally and externally to Cognex, all the way from general concept to production. Work tasks included program and product management, budgeting, patent and IP filing assistance, along with working the development team on ID Design, mechanical CAD efforts, 3D printing, prototyping, vendor coordination, production tooling, and production testing.

Client: Sage Group / PANMOBIL. Product Line: Bar Code Scanners with RFID

 Activity through The Sage Group: Worked as a group to assess the business opportunity and eventually launch German based bar code scanning and RFID supplier PANMOBIL in the USA through mainline two-tier bar code scanning product distribution. This included analyzing and preparing marketing collateral, contracts and US wide customer service. Launched PANMOBIL products through ScanSource. Major customer win was Delta Airlines for worldwide usage throughout the Delta Airlines network for baggage handling with bar codes and RFID tags.