Blog post by Wendy Huffman

Loretta Fricke; Jim Fricke, Senior Engineer/Project Manager; Howard Huffman, CEO; Pat Miller of Engineered Engineerng Solutions Inc., of New Jersey

In the early 2000s, Howard attended his first Controls Systems Integrators Association (CSIA) conference. He did it – even though we were struggling financially – because he was encouraged to go to be a better businessman.  When we’re better at business, we’re better for our customers.  We can service our customers’ needs without worrying about the day-to-day.  Joining the CSIA was a strategic move to be a better company.

Huffman Engineering, Inc.’s first CSIA audit was in 2005. Our practices and procedures were examined to see if we really were a well-run company.  We passed the audit and became a CSIA Certified company for the first time.  Since that time, we have been certified 3 more times and recently have been audited a fifth time, for which we are awaiting results. Being a CSIA certified company means we adhere to a series of best practices while valuing and striving for continuous improvement.

Whenever a person attends the CSIA conference, there’s always something to learn.   There are new products introduced by the sponsoring companies.  But more importantly, there is a wealth of information and useful sessions about everything from project management to HR to general business to cybersecurity and more.  The CSIA conference is a platform for discovering new and better ways to do things.

So, we are in San Francisco this week, learning how we can become more effective and how to serve people better. And, by being in a knowledge pool of other controls systems integration firms, we have a whole library of people from which to draw information when we run into those sticky issues that every customer faces.  You can learn more about the CSIA here and about the conference here.