Winnipeg Free Press, Tuesday, November 20, 2007

By Martin Cash

A Winnipeg electronics development company that played an integral role in the proliferation of the debit card is returning to its roots in Oakbank to position itself for another wave of growth.

IDERS was formed in the early '90s to design and produce secure electronic payment transaction systems for CIBC and was one of the early developers of what has become the ubiquitous debit card network, producing 10,000 initial systems before turning the design over to other electronic manufacturing services.

The company was originally based in Oakbank, the small town east of the city where IDERS owners and founders Bradley Brown and David Fletcher lived.

Since then it has moved six times and according to Fletcher, could "probably have paid for a new building three times over with the amount of leasehold improvements we've done over the years."

Early in the new year it hopes to start construction on an 18,000-square-foot building on land that will allow it to grow to 50,000 square feet if the expected expansion opportunities materialize.

Since developing the point of sales terminal and magnetic card reader for CIBC, the company has developed and built electronic control systems for a number of clients in all sorts of sectors, growing its staff of engineers to about 40.

Its 12,000-square-foot operation at the University of Manitoba's Smartpark was ideal for work it did for clients such as the U of M's network of excellence on Intelligent Sensing for Innovative Structures (ISIS).

However, Fletcher said the decision to go ahead and make a multimillion-dollar investment in its own building -- when its lease at Smartpark is up -- is necessary for it to be able to adequately handle the next wave of growth, which is likely to include an expanded workforce.

"In the past, we always decided to lease space so as not to tie up capital," Fletcher said. "But we are anticipating rapid growth that would be difficult to do in leased space."

The company has tried to maintain a 50-50 split in doing contract manufacturing and developing proprietary electronic components for its clients like the banks, railroads and entrepreneurial firms such as MicroPilot, the Stonewall company that is the world's leading manufacturer of small autopilots for unmanned aerial vehicles.

But IDERS hopes to grow its technology development business, in particular to expand the work it does in remote sensing for infrastructure, an area of development that is becoming increasingly crucial as the challenges of aging infrastructure become more acute.

"We want to build our advanced research and development operations including developing our own technology especially in the field of structural sensing and monitoring," Fletcher said.

In that regard, Fletcher said the company is "trying to come up with viable commercial vectors" in that structural sensing business.

IDERS has designed systems that operate in over 80 countries. These products range from ones that may cost $300 in quantities of hundreds of thousands per year to systems produced in dozens or hundreds per year valued over $100,000 each.


martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca

- - -

Visit the Winnipeg Free Press website at: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/