The brains behind the brawn

This engineering firm spent decades figuring out the most effective way to bring an idea into reality.

By DAVID SHAMAH
Eternegy solar arrays 521 (photo credit: Courtesy)
Eternegy solar arrays 521
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Take a car – or even a plastic chair. Those two completely different products have one thing in common: They need to be engineered in a manner that will ensure they can be used in the easiest and most convenient way possible.
For the car, that means all of its hundreds of thousands of parts, sensors and computer chips working together so the driver can get safely from point A to point B. And for the chair, it means the plastic being strong enough and molded correctly, so a person can sit down without falling to the ground.
It seems obvious, says Dr. Amir Ziv-Av, who directs the country’s oldest and largest engineering firm – but as we all know, corners are cut in the manufacturing process, resulting in products that fall apart after just a few uses.
“It comes down to the philosophy behind a product, which is to make it as user-friendly as possible, both for the customer and the manufacturer,” says Ziv-Av. “For any product, knowing what you want it to do – and understanding how it is going to be used – is the key. Figure that out, and the rest follows, whether it’s cars or plastic chairs.”
As it happens, his firm, Ziv-Av Engineering, has spent decades doing just that: figuring out the most effective way to bring an idea into reality, and ensuring that the resulting product works the way it is supposed to – and the way users expect it to.
The company itself has dozens of patents, but does most of its work on a contract basis for large organizations – private and public, in Israel and worldwide.
ONE OF the more recent projects that Ziv- Av Engineering helped develop is a “surf the sun” tracker for photovoltaic energy production systems. Photovoltaic systems convert sunlight into electricity – and the more sun, the more electricity they produce. Ideally the sun should shine directly onto the solar energy production panels in a photovoltaic array, maximizing the amount of power it can produce. To enable that most effectively, Ziv-Av helped local startup Eternegy develop a tracking system that keeps the array in direct sunlight at all hours of the day – moving the array’s position from east to west, as the sun does.
Eternegy, which is set to receive some $2 million in funding from investors within a short time for development of the project, is in the process of setting up a major solar farm in the Negev (with help from Solar- Power Israel and Rotem Industries) that will improve energy production by some 40 percent over the average output of similar arrays, the company says.
“We met with Ziv-Av engineers two years ago, even before the company was officially set up,” says Eternegy CEO Amit Dror.
“They intensely analyzed ways to help us develop our raw concept into an actual product. I am happy to say that Ziv-Av had an important role in Eternegy’s success.”
Ziv-Av’s website (http://goo.gl/kbchb) lists dozens of products designed by the firm’s engineers – everything from a complete automated airport baggage handling system to innovative lifts and transport equipment for semitrailers and train cars, to improvements on armored Hummer vehicles, as well as numerous medical devices. And of course, he says, the company has developed all sorts of security projects that he is not at liberty to reveal.
One hush-hush project the company is working on for a foreign client is a system that will allow security personnel to check large crowds of people quickly and efficiently while maintaining the natural flow of traffic at airports, bus depots, malls, etc. The system checks individuals and their belongings as they file through, saving time, energy and frustration for everyone involved.
Ziv-Av worked with the foreign client, which actually developed the product, on some of its key features.
Among the medical devices on which Ziv- Av engineers have worked is a device to allow patients who suffer from age-related macular degeneration (AMD) to examine themselves at home and keep track of the deterioration or improvement in their eyes; a “smart cart” for hospitals that makes it easier for medical staff to distribute medication (complete with a barcode and biometric reader for patient identification); a cardiac imaging system that can complete a nuclear medicine imaging SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) procedure five to 10 times faster than anything on the market; the world’s first robotic assistant for orthopedic surgery to receive full approval from the US Food and Drug Administration and the European CE; and a device that removes fat deposits from anywhere in the body (especially from the stomach!) without the need for dieting or surgery – using, believe it or not, ultrasound.
All these products sound radically different, but they really aren’t, says Ziv-Av. “The secret to a successful product is to understand how and why it is being used, and to design with that in mind. And that applies to just about everything.”