Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1111672
70 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MAY 2019 tant in that entire flow of design concept to product launch, so mechanical and thermal capabilities are crucial. We have an in-house engineering team that works with the electri- cal team, and the beauty is not just these two teams, but the buyers, materials, planning, and manufacturing are all part of that effort. We consider real-time feedback on issues with supply chain, availability of parts, and end of life. We design based on real-time mar- ket feedback from our buyer and manufactur- ing teams, and that interaction is very impor- tant. Sometimes, that benefit is overlooked by the customer until they've been burnt going down that road with a rocky handoff from one team to another, and all of the issues have to be cleared by the customer. In our case, from DFM input to sole-source parts issues, for example, we're incorporating all of that as the design progresses before it matures. We have a good lockdown on which fabricator we're going to work with as well as technology, material availability, and imped- ances. Are we going to have the complete kit clear to build status internally before the fab- ricator arrives? All of these are critical consid- erations. And as a design progresses, there are changes constantly being made to the bill of materials (BOM). We have to the flow of those changes efficiently to the manufacturing team and the buyer's teams so that they are well prepared and buy the right parts, which is a huge task. Again, if customers are dealing with multi- ple vendors, they underestimate that effort, or they have the burden to make sure those tran- sitions are happening. We take care of that, so the customers really have to focus on interact- ing with us, making sure what they want is clearly defined, and we implement that. They don't have to handle the interaction between multiple disciplines. Traditionally, multiple vendors have to handle the bridge between the translational information of those vendors. We have a strong combination of world-class man- ufacturing talent; and mechanical, thermal, material supply chain, and design expertise. Johnson: With all those disciplines inside your own shop, what does a perfect job look like to you when a customer delivers their data pack- age for the design? Irfan: A perfect job is they know what they want at the concept level architecturally, and they understand the major blocks of their design: which processor, the two or three major pillar components of their design, etc. They should know what they need and engage with us at that point to let us do what we are good at. They should also define the end result prop- erly. What constitutes the acceptance of our work to them? Where do they want that hand-off back to them? If the start point and end point are well understood and they let us do everything in between with properly defined milestones, that's a per- fect customer for us. But we have customers where we help to educate them on the value of mile- stones, etc. That's what they need to really prepare ahead of time for the stra- tegic negotiation of some of the key com- ponents early and up front before they lock those down. And we're equally effi- cient in dealing with startups to very large companies. For the last 20 years, we have had very loyal customer rela- tionships with most Tier 1s, so we under- stand what it takes to engage with that Some of the rework equipment in use at Whizz Systems.