Jun 19 • Alan Salari

Should Expertise Still Travel to the Problem?

Today's engineering teams are more geographically distributed than ever before. Yet when expertise is needed at a remote site, many organizations still rely on the same solution they have used for decades: send an engineer to the hardware.


While this approach can be effective, it often introduces delays, increases costs, and slows down decision-making. A technical issue that may take only hours to diagnose can require days of scheduling, travel, and coordination before the right expert is able to engage.


As systems become more complex and organizations operate across multiple locations, moving expertise to equipment is becoming increasingly difficult to justify. This raises an important question:


Should we continue moving engineers to the problem, or should we start connecting expertise directly to it?

01 

Why Do Companies Fly Engineers?

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Engineering organizations frequently face situations where specialized expertise is needed at a specific location. This might include:

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  1. Troubleshooting unexpected test results
  2. Supporting production issues
  3. Investigating field failures
  4. Assisting customer demonstrations
  5. Validating new hardware

When the necessary expert is located elsewhere, the traditional response is simple: bring the engineer to the hardware.


For many organizations, this has become the default operating model.


The reasoning is straightforward. The expert can directly access the equipment, observe the situation firsthand, work closely with the local team, and make decisions based on real-time observations.


Whether the hardware is located in a laboratory, manufacturing facility, test center, customer site, or field deployment, physical presence is often viewed as the most effective way to understand and resolve technical challenges.


For decades, this approach has enabled organizations to solve complex problems and keep critical projects moving forward.

02 

The Problem

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The test campaign was supposed to finish on Friday. Months of preparation had gone into it. The hardware was ready, the procedures had been reviewed, equipment time had been reserved, and multiple teams had aligned their schedules. Everything was in place.

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Then, on Tuesday afternoon, something unexpected happened. The measurements no longer matched the simulations. The local team began investigating. Cables were checked, calibrations were repeated, and instrument settings were reviewed. Nothing seemed wrong. By the end of the day, a realization began to emerge: the person most likely to understand what was happening wasn't in the lab. He was 2,000 miles away.


The next morning, the decision was made to book a flight. A few days later, the engineer arrived, reviewed the setup, identified the issue, and testing resumed. The technical problem itself took less than an hour to diagnose. Getting the right expertise to the hardware took three days.


While travel ultimately solved the problem, the organization paid a significant price in time, cost, and lost momentum to make that happen.

3 DAYS

To get the expertise on site

< 1 Hour

To diagnose the issue

What Did Those Three Days Cost?

When expertise is not accessible remotely, the impact goes far beyond travel time. 

Time

Projects slow down.

• Lost testing time while waiting for the expert to arrive

• Schedule disruptions and delays to downstream activities

• Slower decision-making until the right expertise is available

Cost

Expenses add up.

• Travel expenses for flights, accommodations, and logistics

• Underutilized equipment and laboratory resources

• Delayed milestones increase overall project costs

Visibility

Insight is limited.

• Limited visibility for managers and stakeholders

• Lack of real-time collaboration across locations

• Dependence on physical presence creates a single point of dependency

The Insight

The bottleneck was not the complexity of the problem,

It was access to expertise

03

Why the Traditional Solution Is Starting to Break Down

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Traveling experts to the hardware has been the default solution for decades.
Today, it creates friction that slows organizations down and limits their potential. 

Agility

Respond faster.

Unexpected issues are inevitable. When expertise must travel, response times increase, decisions are delayed, and organizations become slower to adapt.

Scalability

Grow without friction.

A travel-based model may work for one location. As organizations expand across facilities, countries, and time zones, moving expertise becomes increasingly difficult to sustain.

Collaboration

Connect expertise.

Modern technical challenges rarely require one person. They often require specialists across disciplines, teams, and locations working together to solve problems.

Business Continuity

Reduce dependency.

Critical operations should not depend on the availability of a single individual or the ability to travel. Delays, conflicts, and disruptions can directly impact response capability.

Innovation
Speed 

Move faster.

Every day spent waiting for expertise is a day not spent advancing products, validating ideas, or solving customer problems.

Knowledge Access

Share expertise

Critical knowledge often resides with a small number of specialists. Organizations perform better when expertise can be shared, accessed, and applied regardless of location.

The Shift

The challenge is making expertise available whenever and wherever it is needed.

04

Connected Engineering

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Making expertise available wherever the hardware is located.

Quaxys enables engineering teams to remotely access hardware, instruments, and test systems through a shared online environment. Engineers, managers, and subject matter experts can observe measurements, collaborate in real time, and participate in technical investigations regardless of location.

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Real-Time Access

Access instruments anywhere and observe measurements, results, and system status as they happen

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Remote Collaboration

Enable engineers, managers, and subject matter experts to work together in real-time regardless of location

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Visibility

Provide real-time insight into systems,  measurements, and problems

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Scalable Operations

Support more facilities without scaling travel.

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Agility

Respond faster to technical challenges and opportunities.

The Quaxys Vision

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  • Secure remote access to measurement instruments.
  • Live measurement visibility
  • Collaborative workflows
  • Distributed teams operating as one
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05

The Outcome

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When expertise is available on demand, organizations respond faster, collaborate better, and make decisions with confidence.

Traditional Model

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  • Expertise must travel
  • Delayed problem resolution
  • Knowledge remains isolated
  • Decisions depend on location
  • Collaboration is limited
  • Operations become harder to scale

Connected Engineering

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  • Expertise available on demand
  • Faster response to issues
  • Shared organizational knowledge
  • Real-time decision-making
  • Distributed collaboration
  • Scalable operations across locations

Engineering Without Boundaries

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When expertise is available on demand, organizations spend less time coordinating access and more time solving problems, validating ideas, and moving projects forward.

The result is a more agile, collaborative, and scalable engineering organization.

The Future

The future belongs to organizations that can make expertise instantly available, regardless of location.

Key Takeaways

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When visibility improves, organizations move faster. Problems are identified earlier, collaboration happens in real time, and decisions are made with confidence.

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Expertise Is Becoming Distributed

Engineering expertise is no longer concentrated in a single facility. Critical knowledge increasingly resides across teams, locations, and time zones.

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The Real Cost Is Lost Momentum

Travel expenses are visible. Delayed decisions, idle resources, and slower project execution often have a much greater impact.

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Moving People Doesn't Scale

As systems become more complex and teams become more distributed, relying on travel as the primary way to access expertise becomes increasingly difficult to sustain.

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The Future Is Faster Access to Expertise

Organizations that respond fastest are not those with the most experts, but those that can make expertise available whenever and wherever it is needed.

Connect Expertise • Accelerate Decisions • Scale Operations

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Access to expertise is becoming a fundamental requirement for modern RF organizations.

The Quaxys Vision

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A world where engineering expertise is available whenever and wherever it is needed.

A world where teams can interact with hardware, collaborate in real time, and make decisions based on live data rather than physical proximity.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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ALAN SALARI

Founder of Quaxys • RF & Quantum Hardware Engineer • Author

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Alan Salari's work spans advanced RF systems, superconducting quantum computing hardware, radar, satellite communications, and advanced measurement technologies.

As the author of Microwave Techniques in Superconducting Quantum Computers (Artech House), Alan is dedicated to helping engineers bridge the gap between theory and real-world implementation. His work focuses on developing the technical judgment, measurement confidence, and system-level thinking needed to accelerate innovation and build impactful RF and quantum technologies.

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