Contract Electronics Manufacturing Engineering

Dear Shyam,

many companies have already taken that rout, years ago. More are joining all the time.

It includes using Indian companies as well. Those who hesitate have problems managing distant contract manufacturing, controlling and pure economics.

We do so, at Orisol, in Taiwan and somewhat in China.

reg

Pes Borovietzky

Orisol

I think you are doing the right thing and this may also be inspiring to others. Let me know more of what you do and this may also let others know. It is all right to give some ideas of specilities.

I think that part of the "problem" with contract electronics is that a new design might not have been tested thuroughly enough on the bench before it is handed off for manufacturing. This results in an iterative process that, over long distances, is very expensive and leads to schedule slips.

Although it's a difficult subject with clients, it is often necessary to prototype and test a new design at the contract electronics house to make sure of reliability. Of course who pays for that is the difficult subject.

Bottom line is if the client can't show a good part tolerance analysis and the necessary simulations for RF EME, crosstalk, and isolation then there is a risk that there will be fallout in the final test or reliability issues in the field.

IMHO, that's why it's less expensive for companies with poor design practices to do their production in house.

Development through third party also requires many phases of interaction and evaluation. Government contract jobs are done this way and many big companies also do sub contracting or job sponsorship.

Still some companies have to choose between in-house production and contract production. It is much easier for the larger companies to hire the design and contract manufacturing than to the small one who can not afford to pay.

Contract manufacturing is rarely cheap.

Manufacturer weigh the cost of the design to the cost of hiring an engineer. Many times it is believed that a full time engineer will be more productive than part time hired expert engineer for the same work at the same cost. Companies also believe that in-house production will make the secretes more secure.

Now experienced people can judge it much better but amateurs suffer either way.