5 Tips for Buying Your Next Electronic Assembly
Finding a new supplier to purchase your custom electronic assemblies from can be a daunting task for anyone new to the process. Even if you have experience you may find subtle differences between suppliers that leave you wondering if you’ve made the right choice or not. There are a lot of steps to the electronic contract assembly process and it is likely that both your engineering and quality departments should be part of your final electronic assembly contractor selection. Whether it’s your first time finding a supplier or you just need some reminders this article should point out some key items to keep in mind.
Location
Communication
An item that can ease the need for close proximity is a singular point of contact within your supplier. Is it clear who is managing your project? Are you going to feel like you are bounced between a planning engineer, process engineer, testing engineer, component engineer, quote analyst, sales person, etc? Finding a central point of contact that can bridge all these departments for you and is knowledgeable across the whole spectrum can help make your life much easier. So treat your evaluation like an interview and ask to talk to who you will be working with on your project. You should feel as comfortable with them as a trusted team mate you would hire to work side by side with.
File Management
Often you can get a quote for a PCBA with just a set of gerber files and a Bill of Material. But if you are getting competitive quotes make sure that everyone made the same assumptions if this is all you gave them. Additional items like fabrication drawings (specifying alloys and PCB thicknesses), permissible BOM substitutions (letting them know what they can substitute can improve your lead times and final pricing), assembly drawings (finer details of the assembly process should be pointed out upfront so you and your vendor don’t argue about additional charges, time, or quality issues later), testing documents (often forgotten at time of quote but something that should be discussed upfront and tentatively budgeted for initially), quality standards you expect (this can drive cost differences depending on the depth of your needs), custom component information and pricing (to properly quote any custom components or upper level fabrications make sure you supply the files and let your supplier know if you already have target pricing or a supplier already tooled for your custom component if you’re planning on a full electro-mechanical assembly ). Revisions are important, even if your company is small and does not have a robust revision system consider a simple system and rename your electronic files with today’s date and use that time stamp as your revision. Or start today and name them all revision 1. Revision control of even the smallest of changes makes looking back on changes to your project much easier to control and trace for all parties involved.
Supply chain and forecasting
Today’s electronics supply chains are very volatile. Things you have been used to getting shipped overnight from your favorite supplier may all be gone and have a 50 week lead time tomorrow. Be aware of the components on your design that cannot be easily substituted, consider purchasing a buffer quantity of that part to keep in your own stock, consider what could possibly be changed so you have multiple options. Supplying your supplier with forecasts and placing purchase orders far enough in advance to get parts on order will greatly reduce timeline stresses later on.
Material storage
Ask if your supplier has good storage and material tracking software. Are they utilizing good practices for minimizing Electro Static Discharge (ESD)? Do they have good practices in place for tracking and protecting devices with high Moisture Sensitive Levels (MSL)? Can they separately track and store components you purchased and supplied for you product that you own? These are all good questions to get yes answers to from your potential supplier.
Summary
There may be many more very important issues and details to
consider when choosing your next electronic assembly manufacturer. Starting with the above short list will
ensure that you are already off to a good start though. Are some of the above terms new to you? Do you have questions? EPD Electronics is here to help. Feel free to reach out anytime and let one of
our very experienced staff answer any of your questions.
Many Thanks to Chance Turner at EPD Electronics for this article: EPD Electronics - www.epdelectronics.com