When hardware companies choose to manufacture their devices in third-party factories thousands of miles away, trust is paramount. Unfortunately, that trust often has to be blind. When it comes to identifying the cause of defects in end products, companies and factories often have to take each other at their word, with little hard data or evidence to discover what really went wrong.

GetScale is a company in our current class that helps foster more trust between hardware companies and factories, with a hardware and software solution that provides automated recording and monitoring of factory manufacturing and testing. GetScale’s system can be deployed in less than one day, and boasts a 300% decrease in the average number of product defects in its initial trials at Chinese factories.

TechCrunch’s Catherine Shu wrote about GetScale in a story published today:

“At first glance, GetScale’s
cameras might seem like just another factory surveillance system. The
startup, however, wants to make life easier for engineers and assembly-line workers by allowing them to communicate directly and record the entire manufacturing process.

This means hardware companies thousands of miles away from their
factories get quality assurance and workers aren’t unfairly blamed for
problems… GetScale’s monitoring system lets hardware engineers give step-by-step
instructions directly to line workers instead of middlemen, which
improves communication and speeds up the production process.”

Read more about how GetScale works in TechCrunch here, and participate in the related Hacker News discussion here.