Of the projects Colorado Digital Labs has been involved with, no two have followed the same development path. Each came with a different set of requirements, specifications and customer expectations that made each design process a unique journey. Our goal is to provide our clients with a design methodology that is tuned to their resources and schedules. We take a best practices approach when creating engineering guidelines and strive for seamless integration when working with those that are well established. Since many of our customers are small, startup companies without internal engineering departments, Colorado Digital Labs creates a product development framework they can grow into as resources come on line.
Every product development effort requires a structured methodology to implement an effective development process. No two products, companies or their development resource capabilities are the same. Each has its own unique set of characteristics, cultures and relationships that determine the envelope in which the development process takes place. Because of this, we strive to implement Concurrent Engineering (CE) and Integrated Product Development (IPD) practices whenever we can to maximize use of available resources and keep development times as short as possible. In every case, development emphasis follows Design For Manufacturing (DFM) methodologies.The first two essential issues that must be resolved when beginning a new development effort are defining the requirements of the end product and firmly establishing the budget allocated to get the job done. These issues must be resolved as soon as possible or time and money may be wasted in unnecessary efforts. Even when both of these issues are ambiguous, tasks can still be identified to make forward progress and resolve unknown details. Initial efforts should be driven by market analysis and end customer needs and expectations. From this information, initial product specifications can be created.
These specifications should allow changes as product requirements get defined. Even if those requirements remain vague, evaluation prototypes can be created that allow the client to experiment and try out different configurations of the initial product concept. Our experience has been that once our customer has the initial product in hand, requests for changes or customization often follow to tailor it to their client or marketing needs.
Depending on the type of product being developed and the market in which it will be sold, it is critical to identify all applicable standards the product must comply with. Regulatory compliance is fast becomming mandatory as internationally harmonized standards are being adopted around the world. CE marking is becoming a world defacto standard and without it products will not be allowed to be imported to overseas markets. A recommended aspect of CE compliance is adoption of a total quality management (TQM) system like that outlined by ISO-900X. While specifically not mandatory for CE certification, we highly recommended to our clients that such a system be established if none exists, even if only as a good business practice.
When the requirements of the product are generally finalized, design specifications are created which explicitly describe the individual elements of the end product. These apply to all hardware, software and mechanical components required to build the finished design. Initial pre-production units are then created to assure everything fits and works together so that in-house testing can begin. Initial regulatory compliance testing may also be required depending on the the product, how it is constructed and what it internally does. Most of our areas of concern typically involve electrical safety, mechanical safety and EMI/RFI (Electromagnetic Interference / Radio Frequency Interference) issues. The country in which the product is sold may impose additional regulatory requirements such as RoHS (Reduction of Hazardous Substances) and WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) compliance.
During the design phase of development, it is also critical to work closely with manufacturing resources, either in-house or contract, to identify as early as possible any conflicts which may increase production costs or have component availability issues. If the product is to be manufactured overseas, checking component availability is critical as parts easily obtained here may be unavailable or prohibitively expensive there.
If the product is programmable or uses code in any way, it's important to consider how the product will be programmed during manufacturing. If the code is firmware and located in programmable parts, the part vendor or distributor can usually program the devices before shipment. If the devices are OTP (One Time Programmable), then CDL needs a letter of acceptance from our customer stating that the firmware has been extensively tested and accepted. CDL will then issue a release to production notice and only after that do we authorize OTP parts to be programmed in quantity. In most other application, the products are reprogrammable through JTAG ports or other means and changes to the code are easily accomplished. In these cases, the product can be initially programmed during manufacturing or testing. If the product has a network or USB port, code can be upgraded over the Internet.
Also during the development process, it is important to consider product end of life concerns. CDL encourages designs which are easily recyclable. This is not always possible but we do try to achieve it whenever possible.
Once the product is into production, CDL provides technical support to our clients for the life of the product. Because we always design for maximum durability and worst case scenarios, products returned to us for service are usually sent because of physical damage.
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