Before being designed into a product and added to the Item Master list, a component must be approved by a company's key individuals. The design engineer is usually the person who selects the part for a development effort; he has already determined the part value, the form factor, and the critical electrical performance characteristics.
However, rarely does the design engineer cover all the issues surrounding the part's selection because there are so many other departments affected by a new part introduction. To cover all the bases before component selection for the development project, he or she would be spending an inordinate amount of time on administrative efforts, and the development schedule would extend accordingly.
The schedule consideration is just one reason why another individual -- usually the component engineer -- will dedicate time to qualifying the part, examining not only the form, fit, and function considerations, but also keeping business concerns in mind. Below is a list of questions and issues that are essential to address during a part or a purchased assembly qualification:
Does the part already exist in the Item Master, either under another class-code, part number, or description?
A design engineer may have simply missed seeing the existing part on the Item Master, preferred parts list (PPL), or previous bill-of-materials.
If the part is already in the Item Master, is it on the PPL?
This is the optimal way to develop new designs because the parts on the PPL have already been selected by the component engineer for optimum performance and purchasing criteria.
Is this component available only via a single-source?
If so, then the design engineer should immediately be advised to initiate the search for and selection of a replacement part with a second or alternate source -- this is not always possible. In that event, Purchasing should be notified as soon as possible to allow it to check its suppliers for lead-times and costs.
Is the part an early engineering sample with datasheets marked as "Preliminary" and not yet in volume production?
Preliminary datasheets are a heads-up that the specifications for the final datasheet versions may change and therefore may not be 100 percent reliable as a development component. Or perhaps the part may never reach production.
Is there a less expensive alternative that would save the company some money?
Has the part been previously disqualified from the Item Master for cause?
When there are historical disqualification or obsolescence records, they should be reviewed to avoid incorporating disqualified parts on the new development.
Has Purchasing or Materials previously disqualified the supplier from the AML (Approved Manufacturers' List) or AVL (Approved Vendors List)?
The design engineer may not be aware that a manufacturer has been disallowed for business reasons or because it failed a supplier quality audit.
Is the component's form factor optimal for manufacturing and test purposes?
An example might be a part in both a through-hole and a surface mount package. Has the lowest assembly or test cost been taken into consideration? This is a design-for-test (DFT), design-for-assembly (DFA), or a design-for-manufacture (DFM) discipline. Sometimes the assembly or test people should be consulted to help make the decision.
What are the reliability issues with the part?
The operating environment may set the criteria for temperature, vibration, and other stress related concerns.
Is there a complete specification document from which to develop the electrical testing qualification process?
This is the only way to determine if the manufacturer's part performs as stated in the specification and as the design engineer intends. Do not trust datasheets! They are rarely 100 percent accurate.
Has purchasing given a preliminary approval based upon early RFQs from suppliers?
If purchasing says the part is on allocation or unavailable for any number of reasons, then the design engineer should be notified at once, and the component engineer should suspend the qualification process.
Can the manufacturer's representative or salesperson supply enough samples to allow for a sufficient quantity for board level testing?
If not, that may be a red flag indicator for non-availability at production quantity requirements.
Has the supplier completed a Component Information Request (CIR) form?
An example of a CIR form is available for free download and distribution here.
Does the company have the equipment and expertise to test the proposed part in house or does it need to be tested at an outside facility?
If shock, vibration, temperature, FCC compliance, regulatory, safety, and other environmental considerations are critical qualifiers, then the resources must be allocated prior to part approval.
Has the part been reviewed for environmental compliance?
With Reduction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and REACH legislation involving Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC) comes a very stringent qualification process supported by Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) and full materials disclosures. Without these records, a product will not be able to ship into the EU or other RoHS and REACH compliant countries around the world. Currently, the enforcement terms and authorities are yet being defined for REACH, but RoHS is in full swing now.
So, now we can add DFC (Design for Compliance) to our list of best-practices. Remember, no component should be added to the Item Master without a full qualification exercise, or you run the risk of having to redesign, rework, or scrap products that cannot perform or compete qualitatively, or may be disallowed for export altogether. Please refer to this link for part qualification procedure.
I hope that you have had a chance to review some of the comments which have posted since your post. If you have questions to be answered, don't hesitate to contact either Douglas or me for some help.
Excellent post, Douglas. This really shows how involved picking a new component really is, which I am involved in time-to-time in my line of work. I especially like these sentences: "Do not trust datasheets! They are rarely 100 percent accurate.". This is very true. Also, the circuit and environment for which the component is intended can sometimes affect the component operation. All the more reason to properly test the component and circuit in the intended environment. These are excellent questions to remember, and reminded me of some things to keep in mind next time I am looking for a new component.
Douglas thanks for the detiled list of check points need to follow before sending a product out to market. These will definitely improve the product qulaity and also improves the company profits by manufacturing much needed goods.
I was called into action after they had indicated the product was ready for CES, (Consumer Electronics Show). This was a university professor's class project and staffed by students. They had no experience in commercial product development whatsoever. They just picked parts considering only the basic functional requirement. A switch that would open and close. A regulator that would convert one voltage to another. An Opamp with the correct current rating. A coin cell that would fit in the pen's barrel. An accelerometer that had a three axis response. They were basically putting together a science project with some pretty sophisticated software, (The most challenging and costly investment), and when they could demonstrate that the hardware and software link were working together as designed, they went out looking for investors. There was no effort on their part towards reliability or mass-production viability studies. My job was to evaluate the product. I said because no efforts towards product readiness had been made, the pen was not ready for primetime. Now, had they had a "Real World" Design Engineer and an experienced Component Engineer on staff, I probably would have seen a much different product. In a curious way, this is an example of how the absence of these two key positions can make a difference in any Research and Development venture. As a young man, I was told the difference between the terms "Stupid" and "Ignorant". By no means was this professor or the students, "Stupid". They had brains galore. But, in the same way that most of us are not fluent in all the languages of the world, these guys were "ignorant" in the ways of the Industry. It is interesting to consider the root word, "Ignore". If one chooses to "Ignore" the real world demands of the marketplace, well then, that is just plain "Stupid".
Douglas, you lost me in the explanation of the CE role. Your summary also did not do justice to the role of the CEs. "The moral of this story is, one may have a proof of concept model, that may not be mass producible or practical for the market. In this case, the CE role was not able to justify or "operationalize" the product's viability because of the analysis concluding that the wrong components had been selected, no real reliability testing had been conducted, the pen was unsuitable from an ergonomic viewpoint, and the design team hadn't considered the eventualities of using the product in the real world".
In the scenario above, you stated the components were wrong. You confirmed in your later sentence that this is a design flaw. So it is not the problem of the CEs and yes the CEs wiould have been able to justify their role if the components were the right ones. Also, if the design engineers would have done their tasks correctly conducting thorough reliability tests then the CEs who put the parts together would have completed their tasks and a viable product would be generated which could have passed all your evaluations. Right?
Good for you, you finally got it! A CE should be working WITH a DE, not for him/her. Together, as a team, the CE and DE can really help a company create a good profuct which will work properly, last past the design lifetime (thus giving a reliable product), be producable since the parts are relatively inexpensive, obtainable and are not going to disappear due to EOL considerations.
Since you have not commented on your company, its location, or the business climate where your are located, it would be interesting to learn a little more about you personally. If you would like to let us know a little more, you can respond to this comment on the blog, or reply privately to me at brian75137@yahoo.com. I hope that you continue to use this site, since we are planning some exciting "stuff" happening in the future.
Bolaji,
Maybe someone could write an article with a bombastic title like, "What are the internal forces that will bring a company down" or "Personality, Power, and Politics, Three Deadly Sins." I find it interesting that the word "Company" comes from the Latin, Com= With, and Pani = Bread, meaning the concept of people breaking bread together with each one getting an equal share. I can remember the first time I heard the word, "Company" was when my Mother told me to "Clean your room, we're having company tonight" Somehow, over time and fortune, the word with the connotation of sharing a meal together came to mean "Let's make a lot of bread and give some crumbs to the people running buying the flour, mixing the dough, running the ovens, and distributing the biscuits." lately, I have been thinking about my business as I am in the process of starting up as "Casting my bread upon the waters" to me that means, " getting the word out and sharing a service that will be to everyone's benefit". Will I make a lot of money? I hope to participate with the True Provider in making my daily bread.
Douglas, Now, I am wishing you had shared this great experience in a blog! But thank you for following up with additional insight into what translates a product from design to the market. Some of the factors you discussed in the feedback (egos, unrealistic expectations, etc.) won't be found in a book on business management but they sound invaluable in the new product introduction process. Bravo! And as for your experience in Israel, I guess we'll hear more about that in (perhaps?) a future blog where you can blend industry lessons with life lessons.
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