John Cachat quietly exited IQS, the quality management company he founded 20 years earlier. His colleagues issued a brief statement explaining that he had left “to pursue other interests,” which he denied in a statement issued a year later, stating that he did not abandon customers and leave on his own volition, but was terminated.
Now, with his non-compete clause lifted, Cachat is back and trailblazing in the area of quality management.
In November 2009, he started a consulting firm that has morphed into a new business. Silico Corp., announced in February, transitions quality management from software that relies on databases, menus, and screens into an infrastructure that can support the ERP, MES, and PLM applications that are building quality into their own core capabilities.
“The space that was a vacuum 20 years ago is now compressed by other systems trying to have more functionality,” Cachat said in an interview. Silico’s focus is on business process management, not technology. “Here’s the mantra of the new company: People, processes, and then technology,” Cachat said.
It’s a huge paradigm shift, especially for Cachat, who has an engineering background. “I used to think it was all about technology and it was your job to figure out how to use the software … But today it is about the people first, how they do something, and then the next step is the process. The technology has to be a framework underneath.”
To that end, Silico is not designing a shrink-wrap product per se, but rather a powerful web-based framework that allows an end user — not a programmer — to create and maintain applications. The product, which can be delivered on premise or in the cloud, supports quality-focused business process management (BPM) through a simple form that can rapidly create workflow around what needs to happen in order to improve a process.
Cachat’s concept has attracted the attention of a Taiwanese private investment group that has provided $1 million to Silico. This group has a number of other technology partnerships with which Silico will be able to work directly to add to its technology framework, Cachat said.
In addition, the investor backing enables Silico to open an office in Taiwan to support the Asia-Pacific marketplace. The company’s headquarters, however, remain in Cleveland where Cachat plans to create an ecosystem of contractors to grow his new business.
“My reputation has been built on quality management, and we do intend to go out and dominate that space, but with a different model,” Cachat said.
Source:http://www.managingautomation.com/maonline/news/read/Quality_Software_Expert_Sets_up_Another_Company_33361
