Five Characteristics of a Reliable Circuit Supplier

Add Time：2019/3/19 10:42:53

Due diligence when selecting a source for a custom electronic product can be a critical sourcing procedure. Chains are only as good as the weakest link, and the electronic components assembled to create a marketable product need to combine into a robust solution. Fitting a mix of pieces together that have been manufactured by disparate companies into a robust final assembly requires high reliability in each component. But choosing a reliable supplier in the flexible circuit industry can be difficult to mitigate for a number of reasons:

Tooling Investment. PCB are custom designed and built for a specific part number. As such, there is a front-end cost and set-up charge needed for the design, panelization and tooling. Sourcing a PCB manufacturer requires an investment, both in tooling and the engineering time to define the product. Switching suppliers requires new set-up charges in addition to time required to get a second supplier qualified and producing.

Products requiring high reliability also have extensive qualification procedures. Getting a PCB supplier qualified can sometimes take months and multiple iterations of product builds. An OEMs might qualify two suppliers at the beginning of a program, but qualification of additional suppliers at a later time can be expensive and time consuming.