Printed wiring assembly manufacturing

Introduction:

Manufacturing/production of electronic products by its nature involves the assembly of components on a printed circuit board(PCB). The entire assembly is called a printed wiring assembly(PWA). In the electronics industry printed wiring assembly, Printed card assembly(PCA), and circuit card assembly(CCA) are used interchangeably to describe a fully populated and soldered PCB.

In the fast-paced and cost-sensitive world of electronic manufacturing major changes continually take place. Original equipment manufacturers(OEMs) no longer view manufacturing as a core competency or a competitive advantage. They want to focus on technology, product innovation, brand marketing, and sales. So they divested themselves of their manufacturing facilities, selling them to contract manufacturers(CMs)

and established long-term relationships with them. [Contract manufacturers are also referred to as electronic manufacturing service(EMS) providers and contract electronic manufacturers(CEMs). I use these terms interchangeably.] As a result, OEMs have become increasingly dependent on contract manufacturers for some or all of their manufacturing requirements, especially PWA services.

Computer makers were the first to adopt an outsourcing manufacturing model, followed by both telecommunication equipment and wireless(mobile phone) manufacturers, nimbly reacting to instantaneous changes in the marketplace, it is PCB Assembly no longer unusual for a half dozen different brand-name computers to come off a single assembly line. (However, such products are not identical. Each OEM designs products with unique characteristics and specifications, while the EMS provider keeps cuscomer jobs strictly separate to avoid conflicts of interest and other difficulties.)

Outsource manufacturing

When considering outsourcing as a manufacturing strategy, it is important for a company to understand what is driving its need for outsourcing. Is it simply cost? Is it that management feels distracted by having to deal with many functions nad activities it feels are ancillary to its true mission? Is it a strategic decision to not maintain a rapidly changing technology that, when closely examined, is associated with a process that can be deemed as a support or management process?

Manufacturing/Production practices

Outsourcing originally began with the OEMs' need to manage the manufacturing peaks and valleys resulting from volatile, often uppredictable, sales volumes. In order to perform their own manufacturing, OEMs had to fact three difficult choices:

1. Maintain sufficient staff to deliver product at sales peaks, knowing that workload would later drop along with volume.

2. Staff at some compromise level, carefully scheduling and distributing tasks to accommodate peak loads.

3. Hire staff at peak times and lay them off when sales drop.

Obviously, each of these options presented drawbacks. Contract manufacturers provided a solution: they offered to handle these peaks with their production capacity, and as OEMs gained more experience in dealing with them, routine manufacturing also shifted to EMS companies.

Since manufacturing operations are notoriously expensive to build and maintain, OEMs initially got out of manufacturing to reduce costs(reduce fixed assets and people). The inherent unpredictable market demand, sales volumes,product profitability, and resulting financial returns made an OEM's manufacturing operations exceedingly difficult to manage and maintain and thus led many OEMs to outsource that function. They needed to stop a hemorrhaging bottom line because they couldn't control their onw process, they refused or were unable to address deficiencies, they wanted to get rid of a headache, or they just jumped to outsourcing because everyone else was doing so. What initiallly weren't well thought out were the remifications of and support required to manage their outsourcing decision/strategy. They just did it. Many companies climinated assembly line workers and purchasing personnel in a carte blanche manner when they implemented outsource manufacturing, thinking they no longer needed them. The ramifications included lost critical skills, electronic assembly negetive impact on morale of both affected and remaining employees, learning curve loss, inability to both innovate and provide flexbility and fast response to customers, and loss of control of manufacturing quality to a third party. However, the OEMs painfully learned that more(not less) skilled and technically competent workers were required to support the outsource strategy.

The CMs' focus on manufacturing allows them to achieve the lowest product costs and high product quality. The OEMs take advantage of the CMs' strengths to stay competitive in the electronics industry without most of the manufacturing overhead costs. The use of EMS providers adds enormous flexibility to an OEM's arsenal of available tools. Because they make a broad range of products for an equally varied group of customers, EMS providers have accumulated a wider array of knowledge, experience, and expertise than their OEM customers. As a result, EMS providers often suggest other manufacuturing.