Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1111672
MAY 2019 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 17 components, etc." Additionally, "We [Zentech] can't control the lead time on the components, which is the primary challenge that everybody needs to think about." Muhammad Irfan's perspective was, "Some- times, customers shy away because they don't know where to go for a complete package… But we truly are an extension of their team. We give them the flexibility to pick and choose by tag-teaming with their internal team or hand- ing off certain defined areas to us." The take- away, however, is simple. Make sure the docu- mentation package you deliver to your contract manufacturer is complete, clear, and thorough. Ifran wrapped up his perspective, "We want our customers to know that they can engage with us and hand off the project at any stage and have one company responsible to deliver the end result all under one roof." While that may be the case at Whizz Systems—and most contract manufacturers for that matter—the more work you put onto the CM to do, the more it's going to cost. And that cost will come in the form of labor, expedited pricing, and potentially field failures or yield issues; all of which ultimately comes out of the OEM's profit margins. SMT007 something from it…through good collaboration." Janet Tomor's Suntronic team will engage directly. "Whether it's a produc- tion or prototype run, we have a new product intro- duction (an NPI) meeting," explained Tomor. She contin- ued, "I love when the cus- tomer attends. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, but we sit down with all the powers that be: the production manager, qual- ity personnel, my engineer on the floor, and my buyers. Everybody sits down and goes through the packet that they give us, and we try to catch as much as we can at that point. Unfortunately, things get through occasionally, and then you have to do some backtracking, but we make a concerted effort to make sure that they have everything right before we even send it to the machine." The investment in an NPI meeting can pay off later when customers, "can see what needs to be done; then, [the packet] might come in a little cleaner next time," according to Tomor. John Vaughan also mentioned supply chain, noting that "The [component] lead time is pri- marily a byproduct of the component supply chain. After we have a complete kit of all of the components, our actual build schedule is only anywhere from 2–4 weeks, which is fast when you think about the complexity of the product. The challenge is that the component supply chain lead times have crept up dramatically across all device types, and it's not unusual for us to run across components that have a year lead-time in today's environment." Vaughan further explained, "If the customer is proactively communicating from the begin- ning, and the design cycle might take them six months, we can get in front of a lot of issues by working together. If we're in lockstep with them from the beginning, then we can negate some of those supply issues by pre-buying