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Fabrication and Assembly Analysis?

Do it right the first time – we all first heard this from our parents as kids, and throughout our lives. It’s no different now in our work as electronic design professionals. Do more up front planning, simulation and analysis, follow good design practices, etc. Are you really doing it though?
As electronic design professionals, we’re done when we get our product manufactured. At the end of the design cycle, are you doing the fabrication and assembly analysis before you send the design out to be built? If yes – who is doing it? The designer? Are you lucky enough to have a manufacturing engineer in-house? Or do you let the fabrication and assembly houses do it?
There are many reasons why it should be done by the design team or individual instead of the manufacturers, the most important being that will modify your design! These folks will do some level of analysis, and if they find issues, they will correct them to increase yield. Do you really want someone else making changes to your design? Wouldn’t you rather identify and manufacturing issues early, and correct them the way you want them fixed rather than relying on someone else who does not understand your design?
Please post a response – I’d like to hear what fabrication and assembly analysis you do today!
Jim

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This article first appeared on the Siemens Digital Industries Software blog at https://blogs.sw.siemens.com/electronic-systems-design/2012/02/08/fabrication-and-assembly-analysis/