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Monthly Archives: June 2012

Garwood Laboratories Now Part of NTS

Southern California based Garwood Laboratories Inc. was recently acquired by National Technical Systems. Garwood will be operating as a wholly-owned subsidiary of NTS.  It currently has two Southern California locations: one located in Pico Rivera in Los Angeles County, and the other in San Clemente in south Orange County within close proximity to San Diego County.

“Garwood offers us a natural fit in terms of synergies with customers and services and will enable us to extend our reach throughout the Southern California region, which is a key geographical area for us,” said President and CEO William C. McGinnis. “In addition, the acquisition of long time competitor Garwood Laboratories increases our market share and adds several new clients in the aerospace, defense, telecom and commercial electronics markets. The addition of the Garwood employee base augments our top-flight teams of engineers, technicians and management with an exceptional and complementary group of talent.”

“Combining Garwood with NTS was the best choice for us,” said Jim Armstrong, Garwood President and CEO.  “NTS clearly has the best strategic fit as it relates to our clients and employees.  In the recent years, my employees and I have established a friendly relationship with NTS’ management team. I believe our clients will continue to realize the benefits they have enjoyed from Garwood, along with the many additional capabilities offered by NTS.  I look forward to supporting our clients, employees and new friends at NTS in achieving a successful integration.”

NTS Selected As Exclusive Test Tool Developer and Certification Test Lab for USNAP Alliance

NTS announced this week that it has been selected by the USNAP Alliance as its exclusive testing and certification lab partner. In addition to certification testing, NTS will also develop a test tool to assist in the development and certification testing of USNAP certified products complying with the CEA-2045 Modular Communication Interface (MCI) standard. Official certification testing is scheduled to begin in approximately six months.

The USNAP Alliance was formed to provide manufacturers with a standard communications interface between consumer electronics products, such as meters, in-home displays programmable communication thermostats and major load appliances such as electric water heaters, HVAC, washing machines, and pool pumps. The latest version of the standard has been designed to allow manufacturers to move forward with the development and release of smart appliances without being locked into any particular communications standard. USNAP has recently joined forced with EPRI under the guidelines of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (NIST SGIP) to bring these specifications to the Smart Grid as a well-rounded standard. The specification is now also on the fast track to become an internationally recognized standard as CEA-2045 through the Consumer Electronics Association.

NTS Creates Comprehensive Smart Suite Certification Testing for Smart Energy Devices

Covers new areas required by utilities but outside normal certification requirement

NTS is now offering a comprehensive certification program for Smart Energy devices that includes new areas identified by major utility companies as vital for new products in Smart Grid networks that are not covered by existing certification testing.

The new Smart Suite Certification Program, which extends NTS’ leadership in the growing Smart Energy certification testing market, is divided into three parts, each focusing on key components that are highly important in the selection of Smart Energy devices for utilities:

  • iSmart – The NTS iSmart Certification focuses on interoperability testing to verify that these devices will function correctly with other devices. Testing covers negative, corner, functional, and other test cases not covered by standard certification testing.
  • rSmart – The NTS rSmart Certification focuses on the RF (radiofrequency) performance of Smart Energy devices. Testing covers transmission and receiving power, robustness to interference, and the impact of building materials on the performance of these devices.
  • sSmart – The NTS sSmart Certification focuses on the security of these devices. Testing covers validation of trust center and security keys to make sure that communications via the protocol are secure.

NTS to Host 2012 NEBS Environmental and EMC Seminar

The NTS Silicon Valley facility will host the 2012 NEBS Environmental & EMC Seminar from June 25-28 at the NTS Silicon Valley facility in Newark, CA. The seminar is being held in partnership with Washington Labs Academy.

Among the highlights of the event will be feature presentations on NEBS testing, unique network requirements and recent industry developments by representatives from Verizon and AT&T, the safety and reliability of whose networks rely on NEBS standards. These specific presentations will begin at 1 p.m. June 26.

For the complete NEBS program, please click on the following link: http://www.elliottlabs.com/documents/seminar_nebs.pdf