About JDC Consulting

Jim Coburn formed JDC Consulting in 2003, after spending 24 years with Rockwell Automation (originally Allen-Bradley) in product development and application consulting. During this time, he worked closely with companies such as Ford, Disney Imagineering, Proctor and Gamble and other Fortune 100 manufacturing leaders. More recently, he has decided to raise the profile of JDC Consulting and has enlisted the resources of a variety of application specialists to provide a comprehensive set of services to the marketplace.

These specialists include Dr. Andreas Inmann (medical device development), Jay Hardway (embedded control), Patrick Coburn (enterprise level data base design), and Michael Haessly (quality strategies and analysis).

President

Jim Coburn  left NDI Medical in early 2008, a neurotech startup, to revitalize JDC Consulting. While at NDI Medical, he was Director of Operations and simultaneously contributed to a variety of software projects. He also authored several funded SBIR's for neurotech applications . He had joined NDI Medical in 2004 after 24 years with Rockwell Automation, the global provider of industrial automation power, control and information systems. At Rockwell, he was the Director of Product Development for Advanced Automation Products. Mr. Coburn has been a manufacturing strategy consultant for such industry giants as Abbott, Gillete, Proctor and Gamble, Ford Motor Company, and The Walt Disney Company. He holds a bachelor's degree in engineering from the University of Notre Dame, South Bend , Ind., a master's degree in applied mathematics from Cleveland State University, and a certificate in Embedded Systems Engineering from UC Irvine. He has published and presented at a wide variety of manufacturing conferences and holds a variety of patents in manufacturing technologies. His most recent experiences include:

• Prototyping and implementing software for implantable medical devices, particularly movement-based systems.
• Designed and built software for in-line manufacturing test equipment.
• Programming of embedded microcontrollers and PLC’s.
• Consulting regarding quality and regulatory compliance for implantable medical devices.
• Process consulting on software development.

He is the software architect and primary programmer for the next generation neural implant system for the Case Western Reserve University Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) Center. This system consists of 5 different CPU’s, CAN interconnects, and a PC configuration tool. The system development included different simulation and test beds, using Matlab and Simulink and custom written models in C#.

The microcontrollers used for the implantable system are the NXP ARM7 and Atmel AVR’s. “C” code was developed using the IAR tool chain for both CPU families. The ARM7 CPU’s also hosted the Micrium RTOS and used Micrium’s driver for the USB interface. Additional drivers were written for Ethernet, CAN (the CAN Open stack, which is very similar to the DeviceNet stack), and a microSD card. Jay Hardway provided driver support of the I2C and SPI devices, including the support for the radio communications.

An extensive PC based user interface was also developed by him for the commissioning of the implantable system. The system supports off-line development (including application storage usng an encrypted XML format), online interaction, and real time debugging. Part of the system includes a limited implementation of a user language to support extending the system by non-professional programmers. The PC hosted system was written in C#. This target interpreter is hosted on the ARM7 devices.

He has experience using Linux for an embedded system. He has also developed code for various applications using Microchip technology, including a PID controller using the PIC DSP controller. One of the applications used voice annunciation technology.

He has been awarded several major prizes, including Control Engineering's software product of the year (March, 2004).

Contributors

Dr. Andreas Inmann Dr. Andreas Inmann's core competencies include leading technology development, research, and product commercialization of active implantable medical devices. He earned a Ph.D. in Biomedical Science and Engineering, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering, and an M.B.A. specializing in Marketing, and has worked with numerous medical devices for various applications in the human body.

Currently, Dr. Inmann provides his services for JDC Consulting as medical device consultant leading and supporting product commercialization activities. He was Director of Product Development at NDI Medical, leading technology development and commercialization for several innovative neurotech producs. Previously, Dr. Inmann worked at Metacure in product development and clinical engineering for an implantable stimulation system to treat obesity and diabetes. Additional experience includes work at Advanced Bionics developing, launching, and sustaining auditory products and product enhancements, and work as a research scientist at the Alfred E. Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering using implantable microstimulators for stroke rehabiliation.

Jay Hardway has been the president and chief engineer of Exactest since 1994. The focus of his work has been on C programming of embedded microcontrollers for medical and industrial control applications. These designs involve a broad spectrum of timing, sensor interfacing, and communications.

He specializes in:

• Analog sensor and transducer circuits including switching, linear and battery supplies, semiconductors, opAmps, AD and DA conversion.
• High Level Design Methods:
  State Transition Diagrams, Data Flow Diagrams, Flow Charts and MiniSpecs.
• Hardware Circuit Design:
  Embedded Micro Controller, digital logic, serial memory, Programmable Logic, Analog OP-AMP and Comparator, Bipolar Transistor, MOSFET, and Thyristor. On-board Switching and Linear Power Supplies.
• Micro Controllers:
  Motorola HC05, HC11, 68000. Atmel 8-bit AVR. Microchip 8-bit. TI MSP430 16-bit. NXP ARM7 32-bit. We anticipate using the Arm Cortex M series for most new designs.
• M2M Communications:
  ModBus, Low Frequency Radio, I2C, SPI, UART, BlueTooth, Ethernet and GPIB (General Purpose Instrument Bus).
• User Interface:
  Embedded Web Server, Graphic and Character LCDs. Character LED and VFD. Keypad and Scroll buttons.
• Firmware Design:
  C and Assembly using IAR or Atmel Studio Integrated Environments for Windows PC.
• Schematic capture and PCB layout Tools:
  Pads and Easy-PC.

Patrick Coburn worked for Case Western Reserve University for over 26 years, specializing in mid to large databases. He worked with the Office of Research Administration tracking over $1.5B in grant submissions and over $300M in awards yearly. He wrote the original grant management system, and was a primary developer on the current grant management system. He also developed and suppported a series of web client applications, including some department websites.

His technical expertise includes MicroSoft SQL Server, structured query language (SQL), Microsoft Office automation, and HTML applications.