How many times has your product gone to prototype, test or assembly and not worked quite right? How can you address all dependencies before testing and assembly? Find out in this free white paper.
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White Paper Challenges in Electro-Mechanical Product Development Page 1 of 5
Overcoming the Top Five Challenges in
Electro-Mechanical Product Development
The pressures of globalization and consolidation are complicating the business of product development in almost every industry. But nowhere is theimpact being felt more profoundly than in the development of sophisticatedelectronic products, where companies must synchronize increasingly complex,multi-discipline development environments.
Electrical, mechanical and software development teams are often dispersedacross different geographies, potentially working across different languagesand cultures, and with different tools and applications. Added to that, tradi-tional technologies do not allow for streamlined collaboration across theseengineering silos. Instead of having robust integration that keeps these threedisciplines fully informed via a unified data store, manufacturers often 'crosstheir fingers' and trust that their engineers can find time in their busy schedulesto keep each other updated on progress. Unfortunately, in reality, this resultsin endless review meetings, frustrating re-work, delayed product launches,blown budgets and sometimes even expensive recalls of shipped products.
In this white paper, you'll get a better understanding of how the increasinginclusion of software and electronics is making product development morecomplex, and how you can find simple solutions that will unlock the process,eliminate the complexity, and unleash productivity - so that your develop-ment teams get back to what they do best: create winning products.P T C . c o m
White Paper Challenges in Electro-Mechanical Product Development Page 2 of 5
What's not working - and why Cell phone cycle crunchHistorically, the barriers to integrating electrical, mechanical and soft- Time to RTMware engineering have been caused by a lack of strong process manage-ment, as well as technology gaps. Without an overarching structure to 16 weeks Mechanical engineer defines the initial board outline, keep-out regions, height restrictions, and the placement manage changes and provide timely communication during the prod- of critical components such as connectors. The MCAD uct development cycle, engineers in different disciplines find them- designer sends this information to the ECAD designer selves working on the wrong versions, and using out of date through email via the IDF file format.information, with no 'single source of truth' to guide and coordinatetheir actions. Typically, the technology required to improve the process- 12 weeks Electrical engineer loads the IDF file. Components are es hasn't been readily available. placed and traces are routed.
The cost of these technology gaps is familiar to anyone working in theelectronics industry; manufacturing or testing teams discover, at the 8-10 weeks Mechanical engineer continues with the mechanical design.last minute, that their electrical designs won't work with their mechan-ical designs - triggering a frenzy of rework that can delay launches, 6 weeks Electrical engineer does a simulation on the PCB layout erode quality, and drive up costs. The same dynamic occurs between and finds signal integrity problems. The only way to resolve this issue is to move a major component to embedded software and overall electronics configurations. Without a provide more spacing for the routes. In a rush, the PCB unifying framework to keep everyone on the same page at the same layout technician forgets to generate a new IDF file and time, manufacturers are left dependent on jury-rigged solutions, hop- send it back to the mechanical engineer.ing things will eventually work out. 3 weeks Meanwhile, the Mechanical engineer has a problem Five common ways things go wrong fitting the battery and antennae into the tight package, so he decides to change the board outline slightly to give Almost every aspect of product development could benefit from himself more room. Since this is a minor change, in the improved process management and technology. Below, we've identified MCAD engineer's opinion, he doesn't send a new IDF five specific operational challenges that account for some of the most file to the ECAD layout technician right away.frustrating problems 2 weeks Final design review. Project manager tells the MCAD . MCAD changes aren't reaching electrical engineers quic... [download for more]
