How to Save Money When Buying OEM PCBA Service

Large or small, every company wants to decrease costs without affecting the quality of their products or services. There is rarely a perfect way to achieve this and PCB design and assembly is no exception. Accurately assembling PCBs is not an easy task; it takes experience, technology and, above all, dedicated people to ensure your projects are done right. When searching for a low-volume assembly shop to populate your boards, it may be tempting to use a low-cost shop to save money. However, doing so may end up costing more in the long term due to reliability concerns and lower throughput, which could result in a damaged reputation. As the famous adage goes&#;you get what you pay for. With thoughtful planning, you can incorporate the following eight design principles and cost saving steps to bring the overall price down while still using a high quality shop and getting high quality results.

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 1. Design within Standard Specifications

By using industry standard sizes and components, the assembly team can use processes that have already been established and thoroughly tested. They will also be able to automate large portions of the process and avoid costly and time-consuming hand placement and soldering. Knowing what the assembly house is capable of is a matter of experience and research. Assembly houses should include their capabilities on their websites or provide a link in brochures which should answer most questions of what they can successfully handle. Any questions that are not answered by these sources can be directed to the company itself. The responsiveness of the company to your questions about their capabilities should be a good indicator of the type of service that you will receive if you become a customer.

 

 2. Consider the Costs of Mixed Mount Technologies

When building a board with solely surface mount technology parts, the boards typically have solder paste applied and are then populated and run through a reflow oven to complete the soldering process. Even for low volume assembly where most components are hand soldered, mixed technology requires more time and effort. Depending on the disparity of sizes between through-hole and surface-mount components, different soldering iron tips, temperatures, and solders may need to be used. If this low volume assembly is a pre-cursor to larger volume and more automated assembly, the difference in complexity becomes even more pronounced and is a larger concern. In the case of through-hole components during high volume assembly, when they are placed on the board they are then wave soldered. However, when there is a combination, things become more complicated. There are three combinations of mixed technology: single sided SMT and through-hole, double sided with SMT on one side and through-hole on the other, and double-sided with both SMT and through-hole on either side. Each of these scenarios is dealt with differently, but require significantly more steps and have more stringent requirements than a single technology on the board. For example, even placing SMT and through-hole components on one side requires the additional steps of applying an adhesive to the SMT components, allowing the adhesive to cure, flipping the board and then wave soldering it. As the solder bath temperatures can destroy some SMT components, you will need to verify that the SMT components are wave solderable, making your component selection criteria even more stringent. When there is mixed technology on both sides of the board, this becomes even more complex and frequently requires hand soldering of certain components after the automated process. This is not to say that you cannot mix technologies or utilize both sides of your boards for components, merely that you should weigh the benefits and drawbacks of each and make sure that mixing the technologies is worth the additional cost and assembly time for your application.

 

 

3. Panelize your Boards

The size of panel that is acceptable depends on the assembly house, but this information can save considerable amounts of money. By using the largest panel size possible, you can drop assembly costs by eliminating pick and place downtime. For an example, assume a single sided SMT board with 200 parts and a pick and place speed of 6,000 components an hour. In this scenario, it would only take two minutes to fully populate each board once the board was fully situated. After the board is complete, it will then need to be removed and replaced with a new unpopulated board, either manually or via some form of conveyor. At best, this could take approximately 15 seconds and potentially much more. If the board needs to be moved and replaced by hand it could either take a minute or two for a worker to make the switch, or require the worker to stand there and watch the pick and place work. Both of these options require a significant amount of labor. If the process is automated and takes 15 seconds to switch out a board, over 10% of the component placement time will be in moving boards. If you are able to get 10 boards on a panel, those 15 seconds will only apply to every 10 boards, meaning only slightly over 1% of the time spent populating the board will be moving the board into position. If it takes longer than 15 seconds to switch out a board or the pick and place is faster than 6,000 components an hour, the time savings&#;and therefore cost savings&#;will be even greater. It is in your best interest to find the largest panel size your assembly house can handle, and put as many iterations of your design on that single panel as possible. It should be noted that the benefits of panelizing boards are only applicable if it is the same design repeated multiple times on a single panel. Including multiple designs on one panel will not provide any cost savings as the panel will, in essence, be a larger, more complex single board.

 

4. Minimize Overages

If you are producing a low volume of boards, use an assembly house that does not require reels or major parts overages. If you only need 30 boards and only one or two of each component on each board, it does not make sense to buy a reel of literally thousands of parts. At the prototyping stage, components can be changed out quite frequently in the design and you may end up with a great deal of parts that serve no purpose and may have cost considerable amounts of money. Some assembly houses can machine place parts without needing large reels or tubes of parts. While researching the company, find what each is capable of handling&#;if they require you to purchase large reels for small prototyping runs, look elsewhere.

 

5. Seek External Review

Whenever possible, have someone else review your work. When your circuit boards are submitted to a PCB manufacturer or assembly house, trained technicians or engineers will look at the design and verify that it is manufacturable. This is an invaluable service that has saved many designs from basic errors over the years. However, these technicians and engineers are focused on the manufacturability and do not know the purpose of the board. By asking a member of your team to review your work and provide a fresh perspective, you reduce the risk of missing simple yet crucial errors. If you are unable to find someone with the experience to provide feedback, even explaining the board to someone who is not particularly knowledge in the field will help you to step through and verify the functionality of the design to yourself.

 

6. Take Advantage of First Article Service

Link to Shenzhen Thriver Digital Tech Co., Ltd.

With prototypes, even after thorough and repeated review, it is still likely that there will be concerns. With final designs, while less likely, it is still possible that there is some error that will be manifest in the end product. Many assembly houses will populate one board and send it out for review, testing, and verification before continuing on the process. If they offer this service, take advantage of it. Hopefully all is well with the board, but if not, it could save a tremendous amount of money to catch the problems before potentially expensive components are attached to boards with errors on them.

 

7. Order in Volume

Once you are confident with your design and do not expect many changes, it would be best to get boards manufactured and populated in as large of quantities as possible. Economies of scale is a familiar concept, but in regards to PCBs, it is even more relevant than usual. The actual materials involved in the production of thePCBs are relatively minimal and the assembly of a PCB only has the cost of solder, electricity, and maintenance for the machines who place and reflow the boards. However, the time it takes to ready designs for these steps is quite extensive. There are a multitude of steps required before the actual boards are even placed into the pick and place machine. The assembly house needs to review the provided design and clarify any confusion or discrepancy, before loading the design into the pick and place machine. The parts provided are then placed into the machine, which depending on the amount of parts, could be a long and tedious process. Even if the placing will be done by hand, the process will accelerate substantially after the first few boards as the workers become more familiar with the components and where they go.

 

8. Provide Helpful Information to the Manufacturer

If there are any special requirements or areas that you believe will cause concerns, contact the company and discuss it with them. They may be able to provide design advice that eliminates these concerns or maybe let you know that the design is unmanufacturable. Most likely, however, they will pay special attention to where you have indicated and perhaps make minor tweaks to their processes to ensure that it is done correctly. Knowing beforehand can save a lot of time and money on rework that could have been avoided.

 

Conclusion

It is possible to decrease costs without giving up quality. Instead of using cut-rate manufacturers and assembly houses, follow these low-to-no cost recommendations that will save you the money you need to make sure that your designs are produced to the highest quality possible. Never settle for less than the standards that you and your customers expect.

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When an OEM is supplying products to customers but either new to outsourcing or looking for a new manufacturing partner, it may want to fine tune the agreement with the electronics manufacturing services partner manufacturing the product. This entrepreneur is likely interested in how to avoid costly errors. Let&#;s address concerns that an OEM might have&#;such as contract scope, liability, and negotiating sales points.

There are several types of OEM trains of thought. Some don&#;t have an agreement, thinking that the relationship is transactional, the &#;spend&#; will be low, or that perhaps not having an agreement is in their favor. This is simply not good business practice, and leads to many unknowns which cannot be agreed upon later.  However, there is not a &#;one type fits all&#; contract template, and one must consider the relationship that will exist between the OEM and electronics manufacturing services partner. There are two major models to consider:

Partnership Models

1. Consignment Model: In this type, the OEM buys most of the inputs and transfers the bill-of-materials, instructions, and CAD files to the electronics manufacturing services partner. This is often due to the thought process that you will save money by handling some of the work yourself.

2. Turnkey Operation: In this hands-off approach, the electronics manufacturing services partner takes design or production documents from the OEM and handles purchasing and production. Some details include: subassembly, testing, shipping, repair & return management. Each of these aspects should be addressed in your contract.

Negotiations

No matter your agreement type, a contract is still simply good business practice. Here are some best practices when negotiating:

1. How to Negotiate. It is important not to simply send a contract over to the electronics manufacturing services partner and then begin the process of negotiations. This will actually slow the process down, wasting time and energy going back and forth. Ensure your own staff members are on the same page in terms of what is acceptable, and provide your negotiator with options and your &#;bottom line.&#; One crucial issue is that OEMs may neglect documenting how negotiations will proceed. Internal alignment, then a range of acceptable outcomes.

2. Focus the Dialog. Discuss with the electronics manufacturing services partner what the contract negotiations will focus on, like price rates, out of scope charges, cost reduction expectations, materials purchasing and warranty terms. Make it clear that each time one of the points is agreed upon; it will be put into a binding legal document. This minimizes revisions and keeps a good will attitude. This will save both parties time and money, each of which you want to save.

3. Reduce Complications. Lay out pricing concerns from the beginning. Price rates are too often left &#;to be determined&#; in early negotiations, or the OEM may simply assume any subsequent quotes will be given at the first agreed-upon rate. However, simplify your discussions by using a cost formula. Just fill in a simple table and spell out the simple rates without talking about elaborate options; you want to know what is rolled into each. The only variables to consider are time and quality yield rates, using metrics to hold your manufacturing partner accountable for meeting your goals.

4. Fine Tuning and Execution. Agree from the start that the intention to execute a legally binding agreement exists with both parties. Record the steps taken during the negotiations, which will support the process and indicate where you have traveled in the process. This also ensures no details like material liability and warranty terms are not omitted during the course. Finally, move the &#;range&#; of outcomes which may have been discussed earlier to specific final, measurable, outcomes.

The Relationship is Key

The relationship with your electronics manufacturing services partner is a key part of your success as an electronics manufacturer and the contract you prepare and enter into sets the tone for all further engagement. Be sure to secure internal alignment before coming to the negotiation table, focus on business points, and create a paper trail to safeguard all terms and conditions have been discussed and approved. By starting and finishing this process clearly and effectively, the relationship between OEM and electronics manufacturing services partner is off to a running start.

ABOUT SMC

SMC is a print circuit board assembly manufacturer, custom cable assembly provider, system integration/box build manufacturer that is located in the heart of Kentucky. Our two locations provide quick and easy access for the technology industry in the eastern region.

We specialize and are certified to manufacture products in the medical, security, military/DOD, industrial controls, construction, and transportation industries.  To maximize customer support, we have created five separate engineering departments: process, test, customer, system integration, and quality engineering. These departments offer world class engineering support and product development. SMC has the EMS solutions you need to ensure quality electronic products at a competitive cost.

The company is the world’s best OEM PCBA Service supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.