Great Minds THINC Alike
07.12.2017
Twice a year a very interesting collection of folks from Okuma, our distributors, partners and customers get together to share insights and information about the OSP control at a meeting of the THINC Developers Group (TDG). The THINC Developers Group provides a community for generating ideas, collaboration, promotion, and support of OSP-related technologies for its members. We aid in the continuous improvement of the control and develop applications to help manufacturers improve productivity through the use of the OSP control.
Core Mission
The group was founded in 2006 when Ken Cobb (who today works for Morris South in Alabama), myself and a couple other developers got together to share ideas and brainstorm innovative ways to solve manufacturing challenges by using the OSP control. The core mission for our group is to provide a format for people who are actually writing applications for the control to be able to get together and talk face-to-face, and share challenges and successes in programming for the OSP control. We also generate ideas for future OSP functionalities by submitting requests to Okuma for API development, new features and direction. If you have development tasks this is a good group to participate in, because it gives you a voice into Okuma, being able to have input into what the group’s requests for the API will be.
Preview New Apps
We also discuss Okuma’s App Store, the new applications that will soon be added, and the process for submitting applications. Currently there are 15 apps being readied for publishing in the App Store, so stay tuned for that. (To sign up for notifications, simply enter your name and address in the box titled “Stay Informed” on this page.)
Valuable Idea Sharing
Personally, I find it refreshing to meet with other people who are doing work similar to what I do in my job. In our day-to-day work, we can often find ourselves operating in a silo because, in the machine tool industry, there usually are not that many developers in any one place. You don’t get the opportunity to have “water cooler” conversations in your workplace, but at the TDG meetings, the sharing of ideas is pretty free-flowing. Our members tend to clear their calendars to attend our meetings.
TDG Officers
We operate somewhat informally, but we do have some TDG officers in place to help keep our activities organized. Scott Volk (MetalQuest) acts as President, I serve as Vice President, Rob Caron (Caron Engineering) handles Finance, and Randy Jokerst (Hartwig) is our “Scribe.” The photo above shows the TDG at a recent meeting hosted by Caron Engineering in Wells, Maine.
The Place to Be
The THINC Developers Group is the place to be if you want to be in on the latest and greatest for what’s going on with the API for the OSP control. It’s an inside track perspective that can potentially be very helpful to you as a developer. If you’re interested in joining us, fill out the brief form on our App Store website in the box titled “Interested in Becoming a Developer” and simply mention the THINC Developer’s Group in the Comment section. We also offer the ability to join our sessions via WebEx if you can’t join in person. But do try to come, we’d like to meet you! Our next meeting will take place November 2, 2017 here at Okuma in Charlotte, and we’re open to anyone who’s interested in attending.
Casey Croussore is Software Engineer, Okuma America Corporation.
Other blog posts by Casey:
IMTS Sneak Peek: Machine Tool App Knows Your Name
