Streamlining new product introduction
Streamlining new product introduction
Mark Laing, Valor Division of Mentor Graphics Corporation, Wilsonville, Oregon, USA
The interface between design and manufacturing is a critical junction in the ability to deliver reliable, high-quality products in a timely manner. Companies that have an optimized new product introduction (NPI) flow as part of their process engineering group have significant advantages over those that do not. Figure 1 resonates with many companies, with the typical comment of “Yes, that’s us!” There are many different paths that the design data takes on its way in to manufacturing, both for the quoting process as well as the NPI process. This article will review the integration areas required between design and manufacturing and how a more streamlined flow can be created between the two disciplines.
Keywords: New Product Introduction (NPI), Material Management, eBOM, mBOM, Approved Vendor Lists, Design for Manufacture
It all starts with the components A PCB assembler’s single largest cost of producing a printed circuit board (PCB) is the components themselves. Being able to effectively manage the components on a PCB can be the difference between profitable and non-profitable assemblers. The components are managed as part of one of the key pieces of documentation used in PCB assembly: the bill of materials (BOM). Typically, the tools that manage the
BOM as part of the NPI process are Computer Aided Design (CAD) centric. In other words, the data structure revolves around the physical PCB. However, as previously stated, it is the BOM that drives the NPI process and therefore it stands to reason that the NPI process should be based around the BOM—BOM centric. In a BOM-centric solution, the
physical PCB is just an item on the BOM, mirroring manufacturing reality. The PCB
can still be displayed graphically, giving all the advantages of CAD-based solutions. However, by being BOM centric, the ability to manage BOM variants and approved vendor lists (AVL) and ultimately the components themselves, becomes much easier. It stands to reason that during the NPI process manufacturing issues related to components, such as process defects, component selection, test strategies, and assembly guidelines, should be streamlined and automated as much as possible to create an efficient process for the PCB cost, i.e. the components.
AVL and material management In today’s global economy it has become the norm that many of the electronic products will be designed on one continent but manufactured in another. The electrical designer will specify the electrical characteristics of each component, and the layout designer will then select the
Figure 1. The problem: typical, duplicated design data flows into manufacturing.
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