Before the Dawn of IP Telephony - Part 18
Shipment judgment while bearing pain (January 2000)
These contents translated a serialization article carried by ITPro IP telephony ONLINE published by Nikkei Business Publications, Inc. Jump to the original (Japanese).
Shinji Usuba
General Manager
eSound Venture Unit
Business Incubation Division
Systems Network Group
Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd
After months of suffering during the development of the line unit (LU), we finally reached the point of shipment judgment. But two days prior to the meeting, I was awakened by a sharp pain running through my back.
The pain was out of this world. But what could it be? Appendicitis? I had never experienced such pain. Early that morning, I headed to the hospital in a cab. When I arrived at the hospital, I was first given a shot of painkiller as an emergency treatment. Although the pain had quickly disappeared, I made a determination to undergo a complete physical. And a relatively small stone was found stuck inside the urinary duct.
As a matter of fact, I experienced pain in my back during the middle of night about five months back. I had also visited the hospital then and was diagnosed with a possible urethral stone. I was prescribed with painkillers and had not bothered with it since the pain had gone away. I should have had tests performed on the size of the stone, but I avoided complete examinations since the development of LU was just starting to get interesting. In all honesty, I avoided the test since I felt that maybe I wouldn't be able to go back to work depending on the result.
I was relieved to hear that the pain was not life-threatening. The pain I felt was completely gone thanks to the painkiller. I decided to head to work. Fortunately, the hospital was only five minutes from work on foot, and I was told that I could go back to the hospital in the case of an emergency. However, the pain came back a number of times before the shipment judgment. But the painkillers failed to work and I was administered with IV for the pain.
Shipment judgment at last
Photo 1 IP telephone developed for IP stage
Photo 2 Communication Control Unit of IP stage
Time passed ruthlessly as I spent the days in agony and the day of shipment judgment for the IP-PBX "IP stage" had finally come. Shipment judgment was to be conducted for the three structural elements of LU that we were in charge of, IP telephone (photo 1) and CCU (Communication Control Unit, photo 2). The IP telephone and CCU had no major issues left and were at the level capable of shipment. To be honest, our LU had the most severe problems among the three.
The development of IP stage-to become the first IP-PBX in the industry-was a project drawing major attention even within the company and various departments were involved.
Department Manager Yoichi Kawashima was the person responsible for the overall development of this major project. I was required to explain the condition of the LU quality to Department Manager Kawashima for the application of shipment judgment. Including the measures concerning the capacity problem of the LSI signal processing introduced previously, we had troubles all the way to the end. Members of the development team had very little rest since January and sometimes worked overnight toward shipment. Although verification was not 100%, giving up the shipment application was something I could not do when considering all the efforts made by the members.
Continued to next page: Uncomfortable atmosphere...
Page 1 | 2
