Foresite gains faster prototyping and multidisciplinary engineering support.

These days, it seems like nearly every manufacturing business uses electronics. All of these electronics are vulnerable to a common problem: contamination. Surface residues and airborne contaminants can cause reliability issues and failure in electronic components. The first step in preventing or fixing this problem is detecting the contaminants.

That’s the challenge addressed by Kokomo-based Foresite Inc., an analytical laboratory and consulting firm specializing in electronic hardware reliability. In addition to lab analysis of electronic products, Foresite makes contamination-detecting equipment, and increasingly views Rose-Hulman Ventures as a regular part of its team, returning multiple times with new projects.
Engineering manager Jim Gryga recalls the first collaboration in 2000. “Rose-Hulman Ventures helped us develop our first product, the C3 cleanliness detector,” he says.

In 2022, Gryga was working on a second Foresite product called the Umpire 41, and reached back out to Ventures. “We completed that project with Ventures and were really happy with the results,” he says. “I have done five other projects with them, all really successful.”

The most recent collaboration is the EC41 environmental contamination sensor, which detects airborne contaminants. Gryga says the sensor’s primary customers will be likely be data centers and medical equipment manufacturers, although it will be useful in many other applications.

“It’s either airborne particulates, or in the case of medical manufacturers, their CT scans or MRIs are in rooms in hospitals where bacteriologic cleaning is done regularly,” he says, noting that airborne solvents from the cleaners can impact electronics. “We said, ‘Let’s develop a sensor that can give us an early warning that there is nasty stuff in the air around the electronics.’”
Creating the EC41 requires mechanical, electrical and software engineering. But Foresite is a small company and doesn’t have all three disciplines in-house. So, it partnered with Ventures again.

“We have been very pleased with the high level of communication that we have with the team at Ventures,” he says, explaining the process while a project is going on. “I meet weekly with Sandor Pethes, Gage Wilkinson and Zhan Chen, and we typically have at least a couple of the interns there.”

Gryga likes working on projects with interns, saying it feels almost like a mentorship. “It gives them a feel for real-world issues that can be resolved through product development or software development.”

He also has learned some things himself while working with Rose-Hulman Ventures. He hadn’t used 3D printing before a recent project with Ventures, and now 3D-printed parts are used in Foresite products, with in-house manufacturing under development.

And through the most recent project, Gryga’s learning more about software user interface design, because the EC41 includes an accompanying app. “It makes me think a lot more about how I would want that interface to look and feel,” he says.

Another thing Gryga likes about Ventures is the cost. He says Foresite is saving at least 30% on costs compared to an independent consulting firm.

Gryga appreciates the time saved, as well. The sensor’s enclosure changed several times during development, but he says Ventures iterates designs quickly because it manufactures internally.

“That part of the process is much quicker than if I was working strictly with a design consultant,” Gryga says. “I or they would have to go to a contract manufacturer to make models and prototypes.”
Foresite doesn’t have full-time design or development staff, but Gryga says the team at Ventures has filled that need. “We have done five projects between 2022 and today, and this is our sixth project in this timeframe with Ventures,” he says. “They’ve become our partner.”
To Gryga, these collaborations with Ventures are a full-circle moment. He graduated from Rose-Hulman University in 1981 with a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering. “One of my favorite professors when I was going to Rose-Hulman was Jim Eifert, who later founded Ventures,” he says. “It was inevitable that I would go back.”