From VIs to Products
Bloomy was founded in 1992 by Peter A. Blume, an engineer with an enthusiasm for industrial problem solving and an insatiable entrepreneurial drive. The spelling of "Bloomy" is a tribute to his late grandfather's pronunciation of the family name. Having experienced proprietary or "closed" programmable instrumentation with cryptic software, the company embraced the PC-based virtual instrumentation revolution of the 1990s that was led by National Instruments (NI). In 1992, the company became an NI Alliance Partner due to its strong skill level with NI products and a track record of exceeding customer expectations. The company spent the next decade designing custom automated test, data acquisition, and control systems, almost exclusively using LabVIEW and NI hardware. Their diverse experience includes automating the calibration of aerospace instrumentation; developing circuit board assembly functional test systems; automating end-to-end production and test of electro-optical network components; automating the manufacture, monitoring, and test of fuel cells, power plants, and battery energy storage systems; and automating the test of medical devices such as defibrillators and insulin pumps.
Geographical expansion
Successful in building long-term relationships, and exceeding customer expectations, the company opened additional engineering facilities in Milford, Massachusetts in 2001, and Mahwah, New Jersey in 2002. In 2007, under the direction of then Unit Manager Robert Cornwell, the MA office began focusing on turnkey automated test system design and assembly. Robert lead the MA office expansion to the current location in Marlborough, MA, which includes dedicated production space. In 2011, under the direction of then Unit Manager Steven Hoenig, the NJ office moved to its present location in Paramus, NJ which includes a NI Certified Training Center and an electronics assembly lab. In 2013, the company opened a western US Sales office to facilitate the sale of products and platforms to customers in the western US.
Vertical industries
As Bloomy has grown it has developed specialized industry knowledge of aerospace, optical communications, fuel cells, electronics, medical devices, semiconductors, and advanced batteries. Successful assisting multiple battery manufacturers bring new advanced batteries to market, in 2013 Bloomy released the company's first COTS product, the Battery Simulator 1200, a programmable instrument that facilitates safe and efficient testing of battery management systems. Over the years, the Battery Simulator 1200 has been relied upon by automotive companies throughout North America, Europe and Asia. More recently, Bloomy contributed its wide-ranging experience with aerospace and defense real-time testing to a multi-year collaborative effort with NI to develop NI's transformative new Switch, Load and Signal Conditioning (SLSC) architecture. This experience includes both Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) and Systems Integration Lab (SIL) test systems for verification and validation of aerospace electronic assemblies, such as electronic engine controls, flight control computers, and subsystem controllers. Furthermore, Bloomy has extended NI's offering by developing its own sensor and bus simulation modules, interconnects, and software, including LVDT, RVDT, resolver, thermocouple, load and MIL-STD-1553B, all of which are commercially-available products for SLSC or compactRIO.
Recent accolades
Bloomy has and continues to be distinguished as a top-tier Platinum or Select NI Alliance Partner every year since the tiering began in 1999. Bloomy is widely known for its top engineering talent, and best engineering practices. In 2007, Bloomy established the industry standard for LabVIEW best practices by publishing The LabVIEW Style Book ((c) 2007, Prentice Hall). Bloomy has the most NI Certified Architects of any organically grown NI Alliance Partner. In 2013 and 2014, Bloomy was awarded "Most Outstanding Technical Resources - Platinum Level" by NI, and in 2017 Bloomy was awarded "Alliance Partner of the Year - Americas Region".
Products and platforms
Today, Bloomy's charter is to package the best practices that have evolved from more than 25 years of engineering excellence into innovative products and platforms that reduce customers' development effort, lead times, and risk. This includes the company's flagship UTSTM line of electronics functional testers, the BMS family of battery management test systems, and the SLSC HIL Simulators. These products have been well received by customers, media, and industry.
The next 25 years will be exciting, as Bloomy prepares to help customers electrify vehicles, increase renewable energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, revolutionize communications, improve national security and public health. Bloomy's automated test equipment is sure to test and measure our progress, every step of the way.