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Collaborative Systems Can Revolutionize Industry
February 13, 2008 |Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
It is no secret that the PCB industry traditionally has been highly segmented, and that outsourcing has further highlighted the separation within the industry. While large-volume PCB production experienced significant improvement in cost and quality over the past decade, the prototyping and quick-turn process is lagging behind in achieving similar efficiencies.
In a bid to protect their expertise and capabilities, specialized companies within key segments of the PCB industry have raised virtual barriers between each other. Such barriers have prevented the free exchange of information and knowledge, leading to a loss of design information and expertise, and compounding production time and costs.
A collaborative open tool system can bring together critical segments of the PCB prototype industry to improve the design flow process. By incorporating four key industry components - knowledge, tools, libraries and parts, and manufacturing - a collaborative system can provide designers and engineers with greater access to information that could result in designs with fewer turns, lower costs, and reduced production times.
Specialized PCB companies have maintained strict control over knowledge and capabilities; although critical to maintaining their competitive edge, such barriers may have proven detrimental to designers.
In an open community of PCB stakeholders, PCB designers can benefit from a virtual network of experts positioned along various stages of the design process. Furthermore, PCB designers themselves can participate not only as customers, but as contributors, experts, and service providers, serving as a sounding board for design approaches contemplated by other users.
Open tools have made significant strides in recent years, gaining wider acceptance by introducing greater functionality. For many PCB designers, the current spectrum of open tools can provide the functionality required to create a solid product. With access to a central resource for open tools, design teams can discover and exploit low- or no-cost design tools, creating opportunities to lower capital expenditures and funnel resources to additional research and development.Although the portion of the PCB industry that focuses on state-of-the-art boards may be better served by more robust and complex software packages, the bulk of the industry seeking a strong product should be able to reduce software expenses without compromising quality.
With a range of PCB components available in the marketplace, bringing suppliers and options together in one central system can promote greater efficiency. For PCB designers, comprehensive libraries of innovative parts provide teams with a better sense of the materials available and how they can best be incorporated into designs. For buyers, procurement, version control and ordering processes can be simplified through tools such as automated ordering, options for design hosting, and parts BOM tracking. Furthermore, the design process - from prototype to production - should become more transparent in a collaborative environment, providing buyers with enhanced productivity.
In the traditional PCB work flow, a team designs a circuit board, submits the design to manufacturing, and then learns whether or not the design can be produced according to the rules of the selected fabricator. If rules are at odds, the design needs to be reworked and then resubmitted for another check. This cumbersome process often entails cost overruns and delays. Heightened design complexity, abbreviated design cycles, and increased levels of outsourcing further stress the tools and design rule check currently in place.
A collaborative open tools system can help break through the barriers between design and manufacturing. By making information readily available on design decisions and their impact on manufacturing, teams can design around potential problems, reduce turns in a design cycle, and possibly even maximize yields.
For example, at Sunstone Circuits, we have created an open-access resource that fosters a collaborative environment for PCB designers and service providers. ECOsystem streamlines the PCB production process by connecting engineering, fabrication and supply chain work flows.By including PCB expertise in knowledge, tools, libraries, and manufacturing, this open-source platform tackles the design process in a holistic manner. By furnishing design tools and manufacturing expertise, Sunstone is able to draw in partner vendors for open and seamless transition along the supply chain. In addition, we provide users with enterprise-style design flows and a manufacturing supply chain that can be specified and controlled. PCB designers can then create a quality product within funding, time and complexity parameters.
As in many other industries, greater profitability in the PCB sector is increasingly tied to effective collaboration. A unifying system that connects design, supply, manufacturing and assembly can provide PCB designers with more efficient work flow from concept to delivery. By introducing a venue for greater collaboration among customers and key segments of the PCB manufacturing industry, the PCB industry is better positioned to address its own long-term viability and recapture a sense of innovation.
Terry Heilman is CEO of Sunstone Circuits.