A lot of groundwork is required before we could get into the successful production cycle in any digital equipment manufacturing scenario. Major challenges are faced in the PCB sourcing process. The PCBs make the functional center of any digital gadget and without the PCBs your digital gadgets will not exist.
The first step therefore is to find a dependable PCB manufacturer to handle your ongoing requirements. As you are trying to find the best PCB manufacturer, it is also a good idea to list the bottlenecks that you are likely to face during the PCB sourcing process. When you know the bottlenecks in advance you would be better prepared. Take your time to find the most dependable suppliers so that you are not running into supplier based bottlenecks.
When you are trying to get a fully functional digital gadget or electronic product, you need to first build a stable PCB prototype. This phase could be a highly challenging phase. First of all, not all PCB manufacturers are ready to take up PCB protype building requirements because prototypes are built in smaller quantities and it is a time consuming process because of the number of iterations that they go through. Therefore, you need to give extra care and attention when you are selecting your PCB prototype building company.
The prototype building company itself should take care of your mass production needs too and that would be the ideal scenario. Your PCB manufacturer would have gained better understanding of your PCB requirements if they were to build your prototypes. This will enable them to deliver more dependable solutions.
Once you have sorted out all the initial challenges in the building of your PCB prototype and taken the production to mass production stage then you are likely to run into glitches during the PCB assembly phase. During this phase all the PCB components should have been sourced and kept ready. The easiest way to handle this process is to find a company that is ready to take care of the PCB component sourcing process. If they source the PCB components for you then you will be saving a lot of time and unnecessary delays will also be prevented. When the customers try to source the PCB components, they will not have the required experience in this field and they could take longer than required to source the components. On the other hand, the PCB manufacturer would already have a list of preferred vendors from where they will be able to get all the required PCBs in the most hassle free way. They will also have access to better rate cards because of their long term relationship with the PCB component suppliers.
Quality control tests need to be preformed regularly to ensure that all the PCBs are functioning the way they should before the PCBs are installed in the actual digital products and gadgets. PCB testing could prove to be a challenging process and it needs to be handled with extra care.
ChinaPCBOne Technology LTD. is the author of this article on PCB prototype. Find more information, about PCB assembly.
