At Kitron, our core expertise is not only to support our customers on the manufacturing side.
The product design has a significant impact on the product life-cycle cost. We know that whenever our customers design a new product, they aim to produce the highest quality product at the lowest price at the same time utilizing the latest technology.
That is when DfX, or "Design for Excellence" comes to help. Our goal with it is to support a design that enables our customer’s products to be manufactured quickly, cost-effective, and of the highest quality.
It means the electronics design team strives for the best from the beginning, long before the product reaches the market.
In addition to identifying challenges, our "Design for Excellence" services helps strengthen our customers' designs, reduce time-to-market, and create a competitive advantage.
Driven for excellence at every stage
It is undeniable that designing electronics requires a great deal of knowledge and experience.
Our "Design for Excellence" approach focuses on these areas:
- Design for Manufacturing – consists of Valor NPI analysis for PCB designers to optimize the design for manufacturing. Valor NPI will help to design optimal PCB board saving cost and increasing quality for Box Built and complex High-Level Assembly products.
- Design for Assembly - analysis of mechanical assemblies.
- Design for Automation Assembly – consists of a detailed analysis of product design and process sequence for each assembly step. Analysis of how the design of the product needs to be adapted for the automation process.
- Design for Testability – consists of an analysis of test specifications and design of the best equipment that will fulfill all technical requirements a customer needs.
- Design for Availability – Kitron runs a life cycle analysis (LCA) for the provided bill of material (BOM) to identify components in the risk face of the component life-cycle status. In addition, we suggest replacement components when necessary.
- Design for Environmental requirements - contains an approach to reduce the overall human health and environmental impact of a product, process, or service.
- Prototype Build Report - during prototype manufacturing, all observations with relevance for product design and documentation are gathered and analyzed. These details are documented in a technical report delivered together with the actual prototype delivery.
Through our methodical DfX process approach, our team will identify potential problems and suggest solutions that will reduce the complexity of various manufacturing, assembly, and testing processes, component alternatives, and more.
During this stage, we work with our customers to ensure that their products will be optimized for production, mass, and after-sales processes.
Advantages of "Design for Excellence" for our customers at a glance:
- Improving product quality and manufacturing process
- Reduce time-to-market
- Cost optimization
Summary
We are successful only when our customers are. That is why Kitron always strives for the best in launching products. In summary, there is always value in a good design. A key best practice is to consider how the product will be assembled and tested as early as possible. At Kitron, we work on creating a robust design and improved risk management for our customers.
The benefits of Kitron’s "Design for Excellence" are invaluable, especially in today’s turbulent environment.
