November 28, 2016 Wichita, KS: PWI has recently directed its engineering department
to create a 5-year product development road map that will define our future product specifications. The road map will include a marketing strategy, a budgeting process, and an ROI time frame. As a result, PWI will be able to prioritize their efforts and quantify product development and sales cycles. Within 24 months, they expect to significantly increase their revenue line and recoup any R&D expenditures. PWI currently manufactures and sells Flux Gate Magnetometers only to OEM customers, however, they intend to soon expand sales into other markets.
Magnetometers are a very complex technology, even at the basic level, but, in short, a magnetometer detects anomalies in the Earth’s magnetic field. Of such magnetometers, PWI’s are some of the most sensitive in the world. This can be done at great distances and without physical contact. Flux Gate Magnetometers, which PWI
sells, are fabricated from very exotic metallic alloys using high-temp, hydrogen-filled ovens. They must be integrated into very unique electronic circuits that detect the magnetic fluctuations, and then present the data to the user in a manner that is meaningful to the application.
Magnetometers are useful in a wide variety of applications: they were originally designed during WWII for locating submarines and, while they are still used in that capacity, they have also found uses in interplanetary space vehicles, cell phones, border patrol breaches, security systems for airports, and explosive detection. These are but a few of the many possible applications for magnetometers in today’s world.
When it became clear that the versatility of the magnetometers that PWI markets is much greater than previously thought, Judy Baldwin, PWI’s CEO said, “We will be the coolest kids on the magnetometer block! Who knew a small manufacturing company in Wichita, Kansas could affect the world’s security?”.
