Value Engineering
There is a lot of buzz about ‘Design for Manufacture’ in the contract electronics industry at the moment. Companies now measure production by cost instead of the outright speed, especially as end products now have more variants, lower build quantities and can be subject to constant development. Reducing the cost of manufacture saves real money.
Hansatech EMS has always had skills in designing for manufacture, with a dedicated CAD department and highly skilled production engineers. In recent years this has extended across the company from top to bottom, the buyers, stores people, technicians on machines, etc. Recommended changes range from a reorganising the assembly drawings, alternate tooling, parts distribution, alternative parts, to redesign of panelisation even component layout for test. As much of this is done before a product hits the shop floor, but these activities also happen in real time as the product is processed. We call this ‘Value Engineering’.
Optimising the panelisation of a PCB might mean a flexible machine choice, easier handling, cheap universal tooling instead of bespoke. An increase in pads for test may offer a cheap in-circuit test instead of complex functional. Changing the tolerance on a group of components may lead to a reduction in the number of different parts and a larger quantity of each, saving up-front costs. Changing a connector to intrusive reflow instead of wave solder might save a whole process. All these are part of the Value Engineering process which Hansatech has embraced right across its workforce.
Hansatech has developed a feedback documentation system that allows production staff as well as non-direct staff to feedback to the customer manufacturing and cost changes. A close relationship is formed this way that has led to several cost savings not only at Hansatech, but the cost of the product for the customer. It should be noted that this Value Engineering process currently is successfully used to build a suite of products that take 2 weeks from introduction to shipping to customer.