After you’ve designed your new electronics product you’ll need a way to build a working prototype and then bring the product to market with volume production. This means that you must have someone to do the PCB fabrication and assembly for you. There are two main avenues you can take for this phase of the project, each with a different cost/benefit and risk/reward analysis. You can choose to have your electronic manufacturing completed by a turnkey provider or consignment provider. You should carefully weigh each option to ensure that you are picking the one that best fits your needs and your business strategy.
Turnkey PCB Assembly
Pros
There are many steps involved in manufacturing a PCB, from printing and storing circuit boards, ordering components to the warehouse, assembly, and testing to ensure functionality to specifications. Turning that PCB into a successful product then requires installation and shipping of the final product. With full turnkey PCB manufacturing, all of these steps can be outsourced, leaving you free to focus on designing great products and running business operations while manufacturing professionals handle all the things outside your wheelhouse. Using a turnkey manufacturer means that you have one point of contact for any problems or changes that need to be made without having to juggle communication between several vendors to track down and resolve issues. Having the same company source and assemble parts also reduces lead times by removing you as a middleman procurer.
Cons
When you partner with a turnkey manufacturer, you are handing over control over the manufacturing process to them. Some businesses may be wary of assigning the production of their product to someone else. But partnering with a reputable manufacturer ensures that your product is handled with professionalism. Properly vet different providers and be confident in choosing a turnkey solution.
Consignment PCB Assembly
Under consignment assembly, you are responsible for ordering and warehousing all the components yourself. You will keep track of all inventory needed to assembly your PCB boards. You will then need to pack and ship those components to the company handling assembly for you. This gives you a level of control that some companies are equipped to handle, but it also puts significantly more responsibility on your staff to keep the manufacturing process going. How does that impact the manufacture of your product?
Pros
Every company has a different idea of how much control they should have over the manufacturing process once their design work is done. If you are working with a reputable turnkey provider with a solid history of putting out quality work, then you can trust them to ensure that the components will meet or surpass specifications and/or tolerances that you have given. But if you introduce a third party manufacturer, you transfer control of the process. If you are the type of person that wants to be absolutely sure that everything is exactly as you want it to be, and you have the resources to handle everything, then consignment assembly is a good option for you.
Cons
Choosing to have your product assembled via consignment puts a lot of extra responsibility on your plate. You’ll need to allocate space to warehouse the components, manage the inventory and procurement for every part, manage multiple supply chains, and then sort, pack, and ship the components to the company who builds it. This requires a lot of extra staff, money, and knowledge that not every business has or is willing to take on. In addition, something could go wrong with any one of the suppliers or any step of the operation on your end. This means that there are a lot more moving parts on your side of the process that you’ll need to problem-solve.
Conclusion
MIS Electronics offers many services to help you turn your ideas into products, including PCB assembly services. As a turnkey assembly provider, we guarantee that we’ll treat your product with care so that your customers are thrilled with the quality they receive. We understand that contracting with a turnkey provider involves a lot of trust, so we rely on a high-quality process to earn and maintain that trust. If you are looking for a partner to provide electronics assembly services for your product, we invite you to contact us for a PCB assembly quote. You can either contact us directly, or use our online quote tool.