Solving your problems, while keeping you in mind.

ABOUT

Trilon, Inc., is a boutique provider of outsourced information-technology (IT) solutions and service. We focus on serving the needs of a select set of outstanding small-business clients in Eastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

We have always listened intently as our clients describe a problem, need, or concern they’d like help solving. Then we ask probing questions until the client and we reach a common understanding of the issue. Once a problem is well understood, we search for a high-quality technological solution that is affordable and that will improve their business meaningfully. If we don’t find a suitable solution, we report that to the client, rather than trying to force-fit a change that is inelegant or overpriced. Our focus has always been on finding wise solutions to clients’ real problems, rather than shackling them with an ever-increasing accumulation of complex, expensive, and ultimately unworkable—and unwanted—technological products and services.

As of 2024, Trilon is no longer soliciting work from new clients. Instead, after more than 30 years of service, we are content to meet the continuing needs of our existing clients.

HISTORY

Trilon was founded and incorporated in 1991 with a mission to explore and understand cutting-edge technologies, so as to enable clients to integrate advanced solutions into their businesses. For the company’s name, the three founding partners took inspiration from the 610-foot-high, spire-shaped, three-sided “triangular pylon,” dubbed Trylon, that along with the 180-foot- diameter Perisphere symbolized the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Together, the two monumental modernistic structures were known as the Theme Center. They housed a vision of a utopian city-of-the-future, in keeping with the fair’s theme: “The World of Tomorrow.”

Initially, Trilon focused on applying advanced information technology to bridge management. To ensure the proper maintenance and public safety of the nation’s 600,000 bridges, each bridge, by federal mandate, is inspected at least every two years. A key element of bridge management and maintenance is the analysis of data stored and collected in various forms: written paper reports, numeric data files, full-motion video with audio, color photos, computer-aided-design (CAD) files, and blueprints. The quantity of information is huge, and bridge agencies routinely circulate hundreds of thousands of documents. Traditional methods of storage make it extremely difficult to manage such large quantities of records—and almost impossible when different forms of information are involved.

Trilon worked closely with a leading structural-engineering firm to develop its Integrated Bridge Inspection Information System (IBIIS®), which quickly became the leading solution for state bridge-management agencies to effectively collect, store, and retrieve large quantities of bridge information in various forms. The IBIIS suite of products comprised three major components:

• The IBIIS Multimedia Information System
  Trilon’s flagship product was a central repository system for all types of bridge information (such as paper reports, numeric data files, full-motion video with audio, color photos, CAD files, and blueprints) and provided simultaneous multiuser access through a computer network. The system was Macintosh based and had Windows PC retrieval capabilities. At that time, innovative devices for data capture, such as electronic still and full-motion cameras and personal digital assistants (PDAs), could be used with IBIIS to automate the data collection process.
• IBIIS On Site (“IOS”)
  IOS was an add-on product that enabled clients to transfer electronic data files from the central repository onto a notebook computer for use in the field. Field access to historical records (including full-motion video) enabled engineers to put site observations and measurements into a historical context and removed the need to take paper documents into the field.
• IBIIS On Hand (“IOH”)
  IOH was a standalone product used for data collection in the field. It ran on a handheld, pen-based PDA. IOH integrated with Pontis, the federally provided bridge management system, which most states were adopting. Because a Pontis inspection is meant to produce highly objective and comparable ratings, based on specific and detailed definitions for each rating value, the bridge inspector needs access to the relevant condition definitions for the element being inspected to determine the correct rating value. IOH provided instant access to condition definitions for the element being inspected while the inspector was entering rating data in the field, removing the need to carry and consult a bulky manual. Scheduled inspections could be electronically transferred out of Pontis, along with their historical ratings and notes from prior inspection cycles. Once a batch of inspections was complete, the new field-collected electronic ratings data could be easily transferred back into Pontis for storage and analysis.

Although several states showed considerable interest in Trilon’s bridge management products, the rate of customer adoption turned out to be too slow to maintain an ongoing business. In 2000, Trilon shifted its narrow focus on the field of bridge management to a much broader view. Trilon’s expanded mission was to assist a diverse set of regional small businesses to wisely adopt and intelligently integrate advanced information technology to significantly improve the way they work.

CONTACT

Although Trilon is no longer soliciting work from new clients, we’ll leave you with an offer that’s similar to that made by the legendary A-Team:

If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you leave a voicemail, maybe you can hire… Trilon.