Why good design is important in low volume electronic manufacturing?

Who needs low volume manufacturing?

Niche Markets Proprietary Products

Creating unique value proposition Custom fit solution

Niche Market

Life Cycle of Electronics Design

Design PCB Manufacture

Component Sourcing

Assembly Testing andCertification

MainstreamManufacturing

Issues faced in low volume production

Solutions to low volume production issues

Pain Points in low volume electronics manufacturing

Component Sourcing

Assembly Skillset

CostsCost of components and skill set increases product costs

Components are difficult to find and expensive at low volumes

Products have to be hand crafted at low volumes and need good assembly skills

Pain Point #1: Components are difficult to find and expensive at low volumes

Direct Sales

Distributor

Semiconductor CompaniesOnline 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

Distributors:Do not cater to low volume market but offer good prices at high volumes

Direct Sales:Components specific to a company are available but logistics can make it expensive

Typical supply chain for semiconductor companies

Options for Component Sourcing

Options Available in low volumes

Price List of components

Online Catalog Yes High Exhaustive list

Retailor Yes Medium Small List

Distributor No Low Depends on companies represented

Direct Sales Yes Low (but need to include cost of shipping)

Only products of a particular company

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

Pain Point #2: Skillset is required for assembly

Automated assembly not feasible at low volumes

Need skilled technician to assemble fine pitched components

Quality issues can result from a poorly done job

At low volumes products are hand crafted

Pain Point #3: Product Cost depends on component supply

In high volume business Marketing and sales overheads form a significant part oftotal product cost

In low volume business Cost of product formssignificant part of the totalproduct cost

Product costs are typically high in low volume business due to cost of components and hand crafted product

Design can fix some of these issues

Optimise bill of material with focus on availability and cost

Choice of components and packages with respect to skillset available

Design

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

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

Should you go for low volume electronics

Also, view our slides on custom design for machine builders at:http://www.emeautomation.com/documentation.html

Our Take:

In commodity market low volume electronics is justified where the design can provide a good return on investment by creating a product differentiationin terms of feature set or useability

In niche market low volume electronics can still offer a competitive price advantage

Contact Ussdas

Website:www.emeautomation.com

Email:eme.automation@gmail.com

Location:Panjim Goa

Phone:0832-2420489+91 9960732924