How to make New Product Introductions a success
3rd July 2017
New product Introduction (NPI) services are designed to help OEMs and manufacturers of electronic products drive down production costs, improve quality and reduce time to market. Here is how to make NPI a success:
1. Be realistic
It takes time to move from initial design through the printed circuit board layout, sourcing of individual components, prototype build, setting up the supply chain and finally the delivery to the factory. Although our experienced NPI team will ensure the time frame is kept as short as possible, while keeping quality standards high, it is important to have realistic expectations.
2. Avoid over-engineering
The team at Offshore Electronics is often presented with layouts for printed circuit boards that are over-engineered, expensive and complex to produce, simply because the designer has not fully considered the implications of the design on the production process.
A typical oversight, for example, is to place the majority of components on one side of a board, with just a few on the reverse. This results in a costlier manufacturing process compared with a board that has all components on one side. Although this can sometimes be rectified with a minor redesign, it adds cost and time delays to the process.
3. Consider the requirements and limitations of production systems
By knowing exactly how a production system works, and adjusting the manufacturing process accordingly, electronics design engineers can enhance the packaging, performance and reliability of PCBs, electronics and electromechanical assemblies.
4. Customer involvement
In a typical project, Offshore Electronics’ NPI team will work with customers at an early stage of design, providing both the expertise to optimise board designs from a production perspective, and the prototyping services to enable each iteration to be proven and perfected, prior to volume manufacturing. By involving a contract electronics manufacturer early in the design phase, customers are able to engineer cost out and quality in, and bring their products to market as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.
To find out how Offshore Electronics’ dedicated NPI can help you with your project please contact [email protected]
