Understanding the Vital Steps Involved in Electro-Mechanical and Box-Build Manufacturing
Customers want to know they can trust their manufacturing partner to produce the most efficient, reliable, top-quality product. There are many nuances that synergize to form the most successful manufacturing partnership collaborations. These work best when the following seven vital steps are instituted when manufacturing your electro-mechanical and/or box-build and control panel products. For an overview of the basics of electro-mechanical and box-build manufacturing in our previous blog, you can read that here.
Electro-mechanical, box-build, and control panel manufacturing processes involve seven vital steps that are integral to the production of high-quality, reliable products. Let’s explore these specific steps that safeguard your success.
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Design and Development
- Product Conceptualization: Begin with defining specific industry needs and pain points; identify target market sectors and determine the scope and reach of your marketplace—both existing and emerging; if contemplating a new product that will be market driven rather than focused on a specific application, work closely with prospect/beta customers to gain their valuable insights; research the competitions’ offerings; determine estimated price range to ensure viability in the targeted market sectors; conceptualize your product based on the market research and insights attained, ensuring end-user requirements and needed functionality are included; and carefully contemplate possible emerging product families, feature set, and option methodology, with the end goal of distinguishing your product offering(s) from the others.
- Engineering/Design/Documentation: Develop product designs, including schematics, Gerber files, drawings, BOMs, and specifications. Subject your design collateral to a rigorous DFM, DFx, tooling and automation evaluation to ensure manufacturability and efficiency. Your chosen EMS partner should be able to assist you with these activities and value-add services.
- Prototyping: Produce prototypes to evaluate the design; product suitability; functionality; fit, form, and function; and manufacturability, allowing for any needed adjustments before NPI and mass production. 3D printed parts can be substituted for injection molded parts in this phase to ensure design integrity before committing to production tooling. Your chosen EMS partner should be able to assist you with these activities and value add services.
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Supplier Selection
- Carefully choose your trusted EMS partner based on their ability to support not only your current needs, but also your future goals and objectives, and the scope and reach of your marketplace (domestic, global, etc.); confirm their ability to support the needed design, DFM/DFx, tooling, and automation initiatives; carefully consider whether they possess the required core competencies, vertical integration, and certifications/registrations to support your needs; consider the depth, breadth, diversity, and strength of their supply chain and their management thereof; and consider their suitability for all project phases and production scalability (including fulfillment), with emphasis on your future needs.
For a much deeper dive into what is involved in selecting the right EMS partner, please read our articles, “Choosing Your Global Electronic Manufacturing Services Partner,” “NPI with the Right Electronic Manufacturing Services Partner,” and “Outsourcing with an EMS Solutions Provider and the BOM Challenge.”
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Manufacturing Process Planning
- Process Development: Your chosen EMS partner will develop comprehensive manufacturing process documentation/work instructions—including quality assurance, inspection, testing, firmware, and burn-in requirements; identify required tooling, equipment/automation; determine production workflow; develop quality control procedures; identify/implement required ESD protocols; coordinate required supply chain support activities; and gauge required resources/capacity.
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Realization
Whether an OEM is producing their product(s) in-house, or outsourcing them, the end goal is to expertly and efficiently manufacture your product(s) with demonstrated repeatability and reliability, on-time, every time.
This involves the following:
- Allocating engineering resources to develop the product designs and documentation, and subject the design collateral to a rigorous DFM, DFx, tooling and automation, and process evaluation.
- Possessing the requisite certifications/registrations, tooling/automation, and manufacturing capabilities/operations in the needed regions.
- Development of comprehensive process/work instruction documentation.
- Development and implementation of a robust quality plan, and identification and deployment of effective quality protocols (incoming, in-process, and final inspection, and testing).
- Highly functioning, integrated ERP systems.
- Coordination and ongoing management of the supply chain.
- Allocation, deployment, and management of required resources and production assets.
- Assembly/installation of required active and passive electronic components, sub-assemblies, electronic systems, circuit boards, power supplies, and power converters, sensors, actuators, controls, gauges, passive and active devices; connectivity (wire harnesses, cables, point-to-point wiring, and fiber optics), possibly pneumatics and firmware installation, mechanical components, and additional peripheral devices.
- The consistent production of the final fully functional and validated product that is ready for use, and complies with applicable customer and regulatory requirements.
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Quality Assurance and Testing
- PPAP: Maintain quality plan development and implementation.
- Incoming, In-Process & Final Inspection: Conduct inspections at various stages to ensure compliance with design and assembly specifications and applicable quality standards.
- Functional Testing: Identify required apparatus, develop and perform functional tests required to verify each unit operates as intended.
- Compliance: Ensure the product meets all applicable regulatory standards.
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Packaging and Shipping
- Product Packaging: Prepare the final products for shipment, ensuring appropriate protective packaging to prevent damage during transit, further observing any required ESD protocols.
- Documentation: Include all customer-specified accompanying documentation, such as test reports, user manuals, warranty information, and compliance certificates with each product, further observing customer serialization requirements.
- Logistics: Manage logistics for timely and accurate delivery per the customer’s routing guide/shipping instructions, coordinating with shipping partners to ensure smooth transportation to customers.
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Post-Production Support
- Customer Feedback: Gather and analyze feedback from customers to identify areas for improvement in future production runs.
- Warranty and Service: Establish a system for handling warranty claims and product service needs, ensuring customer satisfaction throughout the product lifecycle.
- Continuous Improvement: Implement lessons learned from production and customer feedback to refine processes, enhance product quality, and optimize future manufacturing efforts.
Structure Is Important
Each of these steps plays a critical role in ensuring the efficiency, quality, and reliability of electro-mechanical and box-build/control panel products. By following this structured approach, OEMs and EMS providers can ensure high-quality products that meet customer expectations and regulatory standards, while also maintaining cost-effectiveness and operational efficiency.
Agility Tech’s manufacturing operations are well-suited to produce these complex products domestically, in Mexico, and off-shore, as required, and we will efficiently support your needs and objectives. We possess the experience and know-how, and the requisite capabilities and certifications/registrations to make your product launch a complete success.
Domestic:
ISO 9001 │ ISO 13485 │ UL / CSA │ UL508A │ IPC-620 │ J-STD-001 Soldering │ ITAR │ C-TPAT │RoHS & REACH Compliance │ S20.20 ESD
Off-Shore:
ISO 9001 │ ISO 13485 │ ISO 45001 Occupational Health & Safety│ISO 14001 Environmental Management System │ UL/CSA │CE │CCC │MET │TUV
Why Agility Tech
Custom turnkey electronic box, unit, and control panel manufacture—from product development, DFM and DFx, NPI, through to all phases of fully scalable global production—we’ve got you covered. Our highly capable supply chain, vertical integration, adherence to the right strategic certifications, firmware/software installation capabilities, and comprehensive validation and functional testing capabilities ensure compliance with all of your specifications. Contact us today to discuss your EMS requirements. We have vast capabilities and can efficiently meet your needs.