"It's our future, let's build it together"

5 Questions with John Harrington

March 5, 2021

John Harrington, Co-Founder & Chief Business Officer, HighByte

What is the premise of HighByte, how does it aim to serve customers?

HighByte is an industrial software development company in Portland, Maine building solutions that address the data architecture and integration challenges created by Industry 4.0. We’ve developed the first DataOps solution purpose-built to meet the unique requirements of industrial assets, products, processes, and systems at the Edge.

What challenges does the manufacturing industry currently face? What does the future of Industry 4.0 look like?

Employees in manufacturing companies are looking to get access to more information faster so they can quickly make better decisions to drive their businesses.  These could be identifying and responding to quality issues, identifying and servicing machinery before it breaks down, optimizing a highly complex production line, providing visibility of production status and production metrics to all employees, and the list goes on and on. 

There have been many advances in low cost sensors, network connectivity, cloud platforms, data analytics and data visualization over the past 10 years which are significantly advancing the abilities to solve the issues.  However, the efficient management and delivery of data at scale has not changed in the past 10 – 15 years.  HighByte is modernizing the integration and delivery of data for industrial companies, recognizing the new business environment and technology landscape we live in.

What resources, partners, and companies have been helpful to HighByte as it has continued to grow? 

HighByte has been fortunate to work with many resources available in the State of Maine which are available to startup technology companies.  We have formally used the services of the following:

  • Maine Technology Institute
  • Maine Venture Forum
  • Maine Startups Insider
  • Startup Maine
  • Finance Authority of Maine
  • Maine Angels

We have consulted with, spoken to, and learned from many more services in the greater Portland area which are too numerous to list here.

How does HighByte’s software differ from other intelligence hubs? How does HighByte optimize its services for both OT and IT platforms?

HighByte’s software is unique in many ways.  The technology includes a flexible modeling capability that allows companies to structure, standardize and contextualize the information being integrated.  This addresses challenges of scale in the amount of data and the number of systems which must be integrated.  Most of the competing solutions did not contemplate the scale challenges we are seeing and that will continue to increase. 

HighByte’s solution was designed to be setup and maintained by the Operations Technology (OT) team.  Many of the solutions today are designed for the IT team and leverage systems they are familiar with.

HighByte’s solution supports the OT team to effectively bridge the OT/IT divide and provide information to the IT team in ways they need to receive it.

What are HighByte’s plans for growth within the next few years?

HighByte doubled the number of employees in 2020 and expects to double again in 2021.  We will continue to grow aggressively over the next few years and expect the sales to grow even faster than the employee count as the product meets critical requirements and we have broader market exposure.


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Last modified: June 7, 2021

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