Why good design is important in low volume electronic manufacturing?
- 1. Why good design is important in low volume electronic manufacturing?
- 2. Who needs low volume manufacturing? Niche Markets Proprietary Products Niche Market Creating unique value proposition Custom fit solution
- 3. Life Cycle of Electronics Design Solutions to low volume production issues Design PCB Component Assembly Testing and Mainstream Manufacture Sourcing Certification Manufacturing Issues faced in low volume production
- 4. Pain Points in low volume electronics manufacturing Cost of components Costs and skill set increases product costs Component Assembly Sourcing Skillset Components are Products have to difficult to find be hand crafted at and expensive at low volumes and low volumes need good assembly skills
- 5. Pain Point #1: Components are difficult to find and expensive at low volumes Typical supply chain for semiconductor companies Semiconductor Companies Online Catalog Suppliers: Exhautive list of components at low volume but at a high price Retailors for Electronic components: A small list of components at low volumes at acceptable price Direct Sales Direct Sales: Distributor Components specific to a company are available but Distributors: logistics can make it expensive Do not cater to low volume market but offer good prices at high volumes
- 6. Options for Component Sourcing Options Available in low Price List of components volumes Online Catalog Yes High Exhaustive list Retailor Yes Medium Small List Distributor No Low Depends on companies represented Direct Sales Yes Low (but need Only products of a to include cost particular company of shipping) Our Suggestion: Choose a mix bag of all options. Online catalog for hard to get components, retailors for lowering price of easily available components and direct sales when the design has a majority BOM from a single company
- 7. Pain Point #2: Skillset is required for assembly At low volumes products are hand crafted Automated assembly not feasible at low volumes Need skilled technician to assemble fine pitched components Quality issues can result from a poorly done job
- 8. Pain Point #3: Product Cost depends on component supply Product costs are typically high in low volume business due to cost In low volume business of components and hand crafted Cost of product forms product significant part of the total product cost In high volume business Marketing and sales overheads form a significant part of total product cost
- 9. Design can fix some of these issues Design Optimise bill of material Choice of components and with focus on availability packages with respect to and cost skillset available
- 10. R&D centers can play a major role to service your pain point a)Awareness of component scenario b)Partnerships with component suppliers c)Can reuse components across projects to hit the volume requirement d)Developed or partnered with the right skill set to assemble the product R & D centers
- 11. Case Study We had selected a particular IC for our project. However, the availability was a concern. There were two sources for this component. a) Online catalog store which sold the IC at 3x the price and b) Distributor who asked us to provide an min order value of USD 500 per line. The IC was crucial for us yet the price of online catalog store would take our product cost to unacceptable limit. Hence we reused the IC in our design for other projects and were able to hit the required minimum order value to get the best price advantage
- 12. Should you go for low volume electronics Our Take: In commodity market low volume electronics is justified where the design can provide a good return on investment by creating a product differentiation in terms of feature set or useability In niche market low volume electronics can still offer a competitive price advantage Also, view our slides on custom design for machine builders at: http://www.emeautomation.com/documentation.html