With more companies of all sizes and years in the market turning to outsourcing for some, most or all of their product designs and manufacturing, there is an increased number of places to find companies and services offering printed circuit board assembly.
As with any type of outsourced service, completing due diligence on the companies under consideration for printed circuit board assembly is an important part of the process. Often, startup companies fail to do their homework on the service provider they hire, which can result in delays, poor quality of workmanship, lower life cycles on the boards and general problems with the products for end-users.
These are all issues that will hurt the reputation of the Original Equipment Manufacturer, at the very least it will result in marketing and customer satisfaction issues with the product. In some cases, such as medical devices, aerospace or military and defense projects, simple mistakes or oversights in assembly quality control can have serious and even deadly results.
Design Review
A top company that is offering printed circuit board assembly but that was not involved in the actual design of the board should offer to review the design before assembly services begin.
These engineers and design experts can often catch mistakes that may be present that will impact the performance of the board. They may also identify areas where the board, as designed, will not meet regulatory compliance or may not be designed with the best possible configuration and options.
Capacity to Deliver
In addition, to ensure quality and accuracy in the design of the PCB, it is also essential to ensure the provider considered has the ability to not only match current assembly requirements but to quickly ramp up production to high volume runs when needed.
This capacity to scale up production will be a critical factor to prevent issues once the device gets to market and the demand increases.
