Lessons Learned in Developing the VACIS Products
Vic Orphan
Vice President, SAIC
Jim Winso
President, Spectral Labs Inc.
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) has developed and commercialized a broad line of vehicle and cargo inspection systems (VACIS) which are based on a gamma-ray radiographic imaging technique. The systems have been tailored for both civilian (contraband detection) and military (force protection) use, and over 400 systems have been deployed up to date. The talk traces the history of the VACIS system, starting from a gamma densitometer idea for solving a specific US Customs Service (USCS) requirement (detection of drugs in near-empty tanker trucks), and analyzes the reasons for the following successful development of the technology.The analysis of diverse factors in the VACIS development, such as user and real-world requirements, identification of applications, internal R&D, product support, and more, provides and illustrates useful “lessons learned” in bridging the gap from an idea to a security or contraband detection product.
The following is a link to the PowerPoint presentation (pptx file extension).
