Holomý & ASN Plus - How to flexibly expand the know-how and capacity of own development department
In today’s interview we welcome Zdenek Holomy, owner of Holomy s.r.o. – a specialist in the production and service of lighting and warning systems for ambulances, fire brigades, and police vehicles. Together we’ll dive into:
Together we’ll dive into:
- The challenges of a small R&D team – how to keep motivation high, handle generational product updates, and bridge the tech gaps of older devices
- The shift to a modern ecosystem – why Holomy was initially cautious about remote firmware updates
- External collaboration – the first concerns and how this approach ultimately pushed them forward
- Competitive advantage through cooperation – how knowledge sharing and mentoring from ASN Plus accelerated development by 40–50%
- Future trends in emergency response systems – from synchronizing warning devices across vehicles to integrated control of HVAC and other onboard systems
What will you learn from this interview?
- How to safely expand the capacity and expertise of your R&D team with the help of an external partner
- How to overcome fears of new challenges, effectively integrate modern technologies into existing devices, and gain an edge over the competition
- How to manage a project so that external and internal developers collaborate as one team
- Fresh inspiration for innovation in the field of integrated rescue systems
Holomý & ASN Plus - How to flexibly expand the know-how and capacity of own development department
(Interview transcript)
Zdenek Holomy: I was afraid that we would lose the know-how. In fact, I realized that you do not lose know-how, you are getting know-how. That's very much different. And I didn't realize that at the very beginning. The cooperation really moved us forward in the knowledge, in the style of work. And this brought us also an advantage against the competition.
It doesn't exist on the market at all. Of course, such an application is similar in different industries, but not in warning equipment. Sales arguments are really strong for it. So it really gives us an advantage for selling and for promoting the product. We recognize that there is no problem with the distance between our company and ASN Plus. It doesn't matter if it's two hours or ten hours drive, because the meetings were in effect online. It was a very big motivation also for our team because we were at the stage when they were bored by the work.
Second big advantage: communication. It's simply perfect. I really appreciate the communication with Mr. Bastan on my high-level position when I do not care about the particular steps, but for me it's important the result. And of course the costs, which are manageable and monitorable.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Hello, my name is Frantisek Vrbovsky and I would like to welcome you here at ASN Plus. We are a development company, which means we develop hardware, firmware, and applications for our customers. We are able to help you with development of the entire ecosystem or for example a device, the whole device, or we can help you with some kind of small steps like remote firmware update and these things. Actually we are here with Zdenek Holomy. So welcome here.
Zdenek Holomy: Thank you.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: And thank you that you've come along to our company.
Zdenek Holomy: It's a pleasure.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: And we would like to have a discussion on a topic: how to extend the development capacities. Because you have your own development capacities, so how to extend these capacities by an external developer such as our company. So thank you.
Zdenek Holomy: Thank you for the invitation.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay so I have a first question. Could you, I would say shortly or briefly, present your company? What do you do?
Zdenek Holomy: Right. Company Holomy is a manufacturer of the warning equipment for priority vehicles. Which means, in human words: lightbars sirens, beacons for police, for ambulances, and for the fire trucks. Also for the trucks in the amber market.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: So every time a police car or something goes and it blinks in red or blue, it could be your device that you are developing.
Zdenek Holomy: Right. Our market share is quite significant in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. So yeah. We have many competitors in Europe, okay, but the world is quite small. And on the other hand you cannot find manufacturing in every single European country.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay.
Zdenek Holomy: The competition is based in Germany, France. Let’s say Sweden, Poland. But for example in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, we are the only manufacturer based in these countries.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay. Okay, thank you.
Zdenek Holomy: Our main advantage is flexibility of the production and fulfilling the customer's requirements. Which is thanks to our production equipment we have inside the factory, starting with the metal workshop, a fully automated SMT line for assembly of the PC boards up to assembly of the complete products.
This allows us to fulfill every single requirement of the customers. We don't care if it's one lightbar or a hundred, with special requirements for the functionality. We always welcome customers with their requests.
The main difference between us and the importers for example in the Czech Republic because the competition are only importing companies. Is that we are a solution provider so we provide them a complete full set of services. Starting from the connection drawings of the vehicle up to technical service and support during the installation of the vehicles.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay, that sounds very interesting. So actually you are like the only company of this type in the Czech Republic? And all the other solutions are imported?
Zdenek Holomy: Yeah, we call them "box movers."
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay. That's funny. Could you tell me who are your typical customers? Are they really for example, the Police of the Czech Republic or is it much more the manufacturer of the vehicles?
Zdenek Holomy: Yeah, well end users is the Police. But the customers whom we sell our products to are the upfitting companies. The companies which are upfitting these vehicles for police, for mountain rescue systems, ambulances, fire trucks.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay. What are the countries where we can find your products?
Zdenek Holomy: Our main market is based in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. However, you can find our products spread across Europe — in Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Greece, Poland, Spain, Iceland.
From foreign countries, I mean across the sea.. You can find them in Saudi Arabia, in Senegal, in Algeria. But we supplied police cars along with the Skoda Auto company.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Oh, that's nice.
Zdenek Holomy: Yes, another Czech product. And these exports are mostly indirect — we supply to the upfitting company or to the manufacturer of the car and the car is exported to those countries overseas.
Across Europe, we are distributing directly.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: That’s very interesting. Just for my curiosity, how many, I would say, pieces of your devices do you produce every year?
Zdenek Holomy: In sets, we can say it's around 2000 sets of warning equipment. And then thousands of the small pieces or parts of it. Every single set might consist of 12 to 20 different components.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: That's quite a high number, actually.
Zdenek Holomy: Yeah. Our turnover is like 6.5 million euros.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay. Thank you. I know that we’ve been, I would say, developing for you or cooperating in a development for maybe more than a year. So actually, what was your situation before you addressed us?
Zdenek Holomy: Well, we introduced our previous set of warning equipment for police cars, let's say, and for fire trucks in 2014.
At that time, it was very modern, with all the functions which customers required at that time. During the time from 2014 until 2019/2020, the number of functions has risen dramatically which means that for one function at the system, we had a discrete wire. That creates quite a thick or robust wire harness, which you need in the car. It takes a long time to install it. It’s quite complicated to control it. And within that time, we found that customers were calling us:
"Would you have something simpler for installation?"
"Would you have something that would allow us to be serviceable over the air?"
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Yeah.
Zdenek Holomy: For remote update of the setup, for example. So in 2020–2021, we started to talk inside the company about potential requirements for new equipment.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: For a new generation of equipment?
Zdenek Holomy: Yes.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay. So in 2020 or 2021, you started to have a discussion about how to do it. Were you considering doing it internally before you addressed an external company? What was the process?
Zdenek Holomy: Yeah. We never used an external company before. All the development had been done only internally by our R&D department.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay. So what made you decide to address one?
Zdenek Holomy: Well, our guys in R&D searched for a possibility of remote updating of the firmware at the very beginning. I was strictly against it. I didn’t want to cooperate with an external company. That was point one. And I was skeptical about the need for remote updates of the firmware.
But life staged a lesson. We learned a lot about the costs related to going around to customers for servicing and updating the firmware on-site.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: So it was your company who was coming to the customer sites for the firmware updates?
Zdenek Holomy: Yes. We have four technicians who are all the time sitting in a car and going around the country. Not only updating the firmware of course they need to fix some failures, replace speakers, faulty light heads, etc. But technically, yes, they also do firmware updates. Which, in fact, is a quite quick operation. But you need to take time to drive 300 kilometers to see the customer.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Yeah. So it’s much more time-demanding because the operation is quite fast, but you have to come to the customer’s site to process it.
Zdenek Holomy: …to waste a lot of time.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: So why were you against the integration of this feature — the remote firmware updates?
Zdenek Holomy: I was skeptical because I thought it would be like 100% of the vehicles being updated over the air at the same time, which might cause a huge problem if there were any trouble or failure or mistake in the firmware.
And the second reason — I was against cooperating with an external company.
I was afraid that we would lose the know-how.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay. So you were afraid that the company would steal your know-how and maybe do it on their own?
Zdenek Holomy: That’s what I was afraid of at the very beginning.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: And it didn’t happen?
Zdenek Holomy: No. In fact, I realized that you do not lose know-how. You are getting know-how. You get the know-how from the external company. That’s a very big difference. And I didn’t realize that at the very beginning.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay. Thanks a lot. As you mentioned, because you have your internal know-how about your product and your technologies, if you go to an external company that is a professional in development, they have a very different variety of know-how and very different specialists — some in firmware, others in hardware, and others in applications. So actually, you can gain a lot of know-how and benefit from a bigger team.
Zdenek Holomy: I can confirm this. The external team has a much wider overview of different tasks. We are quite small in terms of our R&D department. We have four people there, and they are all specialized in everything. So hardware, firmware, software — everything needs to be covered by them. So we are limited in capacity and in the range of information we can get.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Yeah, definitely. If somebody is specialized in all fields, it has the other side — they usually can’t go very deep in all of the areas. In our company, for example, we have hardware engineers who really do only hardware. They cooperate with firmware engineers, but they are truly specialized in hardware. So they can go very deep and learn all of the things and really specialize in hardware. Same with firmware, same with application engineers.
Okay. Could you tell me how the process started? I would say that we started with a workshop maybe in December or something the year before. So we have been cooperating maybe for 15 months or something. Could you describe a little bit how this happened?
Zdenek Holomy: As I mentioned, I was not a fan of it. So yeah, after all, I said “good”. We had two or three internal meetings where we discussed it quite loudly, let's say. And after all, I said okay, let’s do the workshop. It was a paid workshop, so I was not really optimistic. But at the end of the workshop, I was full of optimism and I was impressed by the enthusiasm of Mr. Bastan, who came to us, by his ideas about possible solutions of our problem, of our task. And by his knowledge of the technology which is available, his proposals on how this and that could be solved. So I not only decided to start the project, I also asked him if he would be willing to lead the project.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay.
Zdenek Holomy: As a project manager, because I was really surprised by his abilities.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: So you were convinced that we have the know-how you want or need for the project to progress greatly.
And secondly, you wanted Ondrej Bastan, our solution architect, to be the project lead of your solution?
Zdenek Holomy: Exactly. It was a very big motivation also for our team because we were at a stage when they were bored by the work. There was nothing new coming, and they told me: "Let’s give us a task to do in a modern technology." And this was an excellent way to follow this request, because you brought us a very different style of work — by having weekly online meetings with ASN Plus. Where we recognized that there is no problem with the distance between our company and ASN Plus. It doesn’t matter if it’s a two-hour or a ten-hour drive, because the meetings were, in effect, online. It helped us a lot in changing the style of work of the R&D department.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay. So actually, as you are mentioning, the cooperation is fully remote. We develop in our offices and all the communication is remote with your company. Do you find it problematic in any way? Or do you think it really worked without issues?
Zdenek Holomy: Technically, no problem. In the minds of my guys, it had to be changed. They never worked like that. So it took them a while to get used to it. Because being prepared for the next meeting, to have all the tasks which were assigned to you ready before the meeting, that was something they didn’t know from the previous style of work. We had a style like: "This is the task. Do it. And once you have it ready, finished, give me a report, and I’ll talk to you." This is much better — much more precise — and you have a higher control.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Yeah, and it definitely saves a lot of time — no commuting to the developer’s site, for example. I think it’s much more efficient, at least regarding time, to have the discussions online via Teams or Google Meet and you can address everything in the online world. Because the traditional way in the past was that people were going to the company or the developer in person for kickoff days or design discussions. And they had to spend time commuting and traveling, then spend time on-site. Which is definitely good for building relationships, because when you work online, it’s not always as strong as meeting face to face. But regarding technical discussions, there are really no boundaries.
Zdenek Holomy: Exactly.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: So would you say that it was tough from the beginning for your team to get used to this communication style, but later they had no problem with it?
Zdenek Holomy: Exactly. And after all, they appreciated the cooperation with ASN Plus because the cooperation really moved us forward — in knowledge, in the style of work. Using GitHub, being parallelized in work — so they can both take a look at the same code and the same information, which are in these shared services.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay, great. So let’s get a little deeper into the solution.
I know that we designed for you a communication module which has the feature of remote firmware update. Is that correct?
Zdenek Holomy: Right. In fact, the product will be at the final customers — let’s say — within two or three months from now. And I don’t see only this as an advantage of the cooperation with ASN Plus. If we only did this, it would take three or four months. We did a different task with you — or a different job.
As you mentioned, it’s like 15 months that we’ve been cooperating.
And the reason is that we decided not only to give you this work to be done 100% by you. We wanted to learn from you — know-how.
That’s what I meant when I said that we, in fact, got know-how.
We didn’t lose any.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay.
Zdenek Holomy: So they learned a new style of programming, a new style of designing the products, of cooperation.
And the advantages of the product itself, which has been developed, are scalability — similar PCB, similar components — the possibility of remote update and control, and saving future costs in servicing such equipment.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Yeah, definitely.
Zdenek Holomy: And the configuration for the customer — I can supply him this module, it’s a black box, and he’ll decide what it’ll be controlling. I mean, which setup. We’ll do presets — for example, a fire truck has a different setup for flashing, flash pattern. It means red-red-blue-blue, or all red, or blue. This can now be set — instead of doing complicated settings for each single device on the vehicle — using your application and the modules which we now have available in every single device on the fire truck. We simply scan the vehicle and select: “Change this flash pattern.” And it’ll be possible to change it.
If it’s a serviceman, he can come to the truck and say, “I need to do diagnostics.” He’ll be able to do diagnostics and know what’s wrong — with this or that device.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay.
Zdenek Holomy: And we can also get that information remotely and try to help him resolve it on site.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay, so the service and the maintenance, it seems like the solution is consolidated, so it has simpler maintenance. And secondly, the setting of maybe the features — like the light, which is blinking and so on — can be done through the app?
Zdenek Holomy: Exactly.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: And the app will be owned by the service partners? Or is it part of the solution the customers will receive?
Zdenek Holomy: It will not be available to everyone. We’ll have secured access with different levels of access to the app. So, as I said — end user, for example, will be allowed to change only the flash pattern. Service partners will be able to do diagnostics and update the firmware. And we are now talking about flashing and lights — but imagine the sirens. We can change the siren tones. We can change the way how to control them — duration, loudness, frequency, siren operation, etc. So everything can be done — without physically touching the device.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: That’s really nice. It sounds like you’ve really moved your product to a higher level by simplifying the process — remote firmware updates, hardware simplification by platform unification, and the possibility to set all the features via the mobile app.
Zdenek Holomy: Exactly. And this also brought us an advantage against the competition.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: So your competitors don’t have such a solution?
Zdenek Holomy: No. It doesn’t exist on the market at all. Of course, similar applications exist in different industries — but not in warning equipment. So the sales arguments are really strong for it. It gives us a set timeframe until they catch up — an advantage for selling and for promoting the products.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay, so it sounds like a really big competitive advantage if your solution has these features and the others don’t. I think that it’s a really good starting point for expanding over the borders as well — maybe much more. Right?
Zdenek Holomy: Yeah.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay, thanks a lot. So let’s get to the design of the cooperation. As I mentioned, we’ve been cooperating for maybe 15 months or so. So we have, I would say, a lot of experience with the communication, the development style, how we do it, and so on. Could you give us maybe a little more information about how you evaluate the cooperation, or how you look at it in this kind of a bigger scale?
Zdenek Holomy: Yeah. Well, as I mentioned previously, the biggest advantage I see is the willingness of ASN Plus to pass over the know-how, which they already had, to our R&D team. Second big advantage — communication.
It’s simply perfect. Our R&D is communicating with your team on what steps need to be done, whether they are done, how it should work, and about the evaluation, etc. I really appreciate the communication with Mr. Baštán on my high-level position — when I do not care about the particular steps, but for me the important thing is the result. And of course the costs — which are manageable and monitorable.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: From my point of view, I’d like to give you a compliment. I’d like to appreciate your innovative thinking, because you decided to go in a direction that is not commonly done and doesn’t have a precedent in this kind of field. It’s tough sometimes to go in a different way and to innovate existing products. A lot of companies with a long history want to keep doing things the same way. And sometimes their competitors gain an edge over them because they innovate. So I’d like to appreciate your innovative attitude, and I wish you and your company that you will benefit from these new features and the new way of thinking about your product.
Zdenek Holomy: I also do not regret that we started cooperation with ASN Plus. And I believe that we will keep going in cooperation with you for quite a long time, because there are many ideas for extending the features and benefits of such a solution — or let’s say, environment — which we have now built as a basis. Like centralized control systems for ambulances, for HVAC — meaning temperature control inside the vehicle, combining air cooling and heating — about controlling the energy flow in the vehicle, and many other functions.
Sensing of the lightbars in the field, which is another quite wide topic to be explored. So I really do not regret it, and I thank you for the way you convinced me that it’s a good move for our company.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay. So the things or features that you were mentioning are development plans for the future of your company?
Zdenek Holomy: Touchscreens, control panels...
I would say — a complete environment of centralized control.
Not only for police cars, but also for ambulances, and fire trucks.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay, that sounds very interesting.
Actually, if some of your potential or existing customers watch this video — where can they take a look at your products? Or how can they contact you?
Zdenek Holomy: Well, on our website, on our Facebook — we are available on social media. They can watch the videos and see the products we offer. Not all of them are published — because, as I mentioned at the beginning, many products are customized. And that’s what we do — customized solutions for our customers.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay, okay. So we’ll definitely put a link under this video, so you can take a look at the website of Holomy as well. I think we’re at the end of this interview. We’ve covered all the topics and discussed everything.
So I’d like to thank you again for your time and effort. I know that interviews in English are sometimes more demanding than in Czech — actually, it’s the same for me, since I’m not a native speaker either. So I’d like to thank you for all your energy and enthusiasm regarding this.
Zdenek Holomy: Thank you for having me here, and I’m looking forward to further cooperation.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: Okay. Thank you.
Zdenek Holomy: Thank you.
Frantisek Vrbovsky: So I’d like to thank you as well — the viewers of this video. This is the end of the interview, and we are preparing more and more videos with interesting topics. So you can like this video, and you can click “Subscribe” so you’ll get more information about upcoming videos.
