SEP Blog

We’re curious people by nature. And we love to teach others what we’ve learned. So explore our blog to gain fresh insights from our expertise in areas ranging from culture to AI.

SEP Wins TechPoint’s 2024 Innovation Service Partner of the Year Mira Award

SEP Recognized as Indiana’s Top Innovation Service Partner, Winning TechPoint’s Prestigious Mira Award Westfield, Indiana – SEP has been named the Innovation Service Partner of the Year by TechPoint at the 25th annual Mira Awards. The Mira Awards, Indiana’s largest…
Read Full Post

Trying Deltas For A Change

Last Time Last time we took a look at how improved bounds computation and child ordering can improve the performance of heuristic search algorithms.  In particular, we saw how those techniques improved the performance of depth first search (or depth first branch & bound if you prefer) when applied to the TSP.  Even though we […]
Read Full Post

AgileIndy, a Developer’s Perspective

First, I want to give some background on myself and my relation to the Agile movement. I have read the manifesto, I have worked on teams that have used scrum, and have also worked on some teams that practiced Agile. However, AgileIndy was my first agile conference and my first software related conference in general. […]
Read Full Post

SEP Selected as a Nominee for TechPoint Mira Exceptional Employer Award

TechPoint, the nonprofit, industry-led growth initiative for Indiana’s technology ecosystem, announced the nominees for its 20th annual Mira Awards presented by Angie’s List and Salesforce. The Mira Awards gala—the biggest tech awards event in the state—celebrates the people, products, companies, and places chosen as ‘The Best of Tech in Indiana’. SEP is a nominee in […]
Read Full Post

Pulling the Andon Cord

In the manufacturing world, the Andon cord obligates anybody who spots a problem to stop production. Anybody. Andon cords are a part of the Toyota Production System. The Andon cord is a simple rope that extends the length of the production line. (Black/yellow cords in the picture above) Pulling the rope stops production. Toyota not […]
Read Full Post

SEPTalks: It’s an Agile World Out There – Cultivating Culture

Company culture is hard, transforming a company culture is even harder. Many organizations have invested in Agile coaches, training, and even changed the way they operate; all leading to frustration. At SEP, we believe that Culture is how we act outside of processes and practices and eliminating barriers for people to be their best selves. […]
Read Full Post

Software Development in a Regulated Environment

Getting mission critical medical products launched to market means getting FDA approval. And these days that process often starts in software development. The Food and Drug Administration regulates the medical device market, with many constraints on developing products. First, it may be helpful to talk about the history of the FDA and its importance in […]
Read Full Post
SEP hex pattern overlay of person working on laptop

The Importance of Consuming Search Results, Pancakes

Last Time Last time we looked at depth first search and how it could be applied to a simple optimization problem, the pancake problem.  We decomposed the pancake stacking problem into some components are very important if you want to apply heuristic search: A goal test States Actions to move between states We then looked […]
Read Full Post

Flipping Flapjacks, Pruning Pancakes, and Depth First Steps

In the previous post in this series I spent some time trying to convince you that toy problems are worthy of your attention. In particular, I tried to sell you on the notion that the pancake problem was worthy of your attention.  It isn’t necessarily because flipping flapjacks is in of itself fascinating.  It’s because […]
Read Full Post

Looking Back Over The Years – A Message from Jeff Gilbert

Looking Back The 30+ years at SEP flew by. You hear older people say things like that often, and it does feel like life accelerates. There were some very tough times and a lot of great times. For me, I always felt like just another employee with the responsibility to look out after all of […]
Read Full Post