New-Tech Europe | September 2016 | Digital Edition

The lifecycle of an idea

Steve Vecchialrelli, Vice President Supply Chain Solutions at Digi-Key Electronics

In May last year, one of just 200 Apple I computers ever made sold at auction in Germany for more than £400,000. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak designed and hand-built the first machine immediately after going to a meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club in a Menlo Park, California garage. Two years later, Apple launched its first volume-sales machine, the Apple II, which was a more advanced and carefully cost-optimised design. To help with customer support, as Wozniak was the only person with first-hand knowledge of the inner workings of the original, the company offered trade-in deals to encourage customers to move to the more advanced machine. It was a recognition of the many factors at play in the construction of an electronic system – the importance of ongoing support in a product’s lifecycle. To ensure that the launch and ongoing support of a product is as smooth and

successful as possible, many functions – and often a variety of people – will be involved throughout the lifecycle. As well as design engineering, marketing, product planning, purchasing and supply management, field support, reliability engineering, production engineering, quality and even key customers will play roles in the development lifecycle. Historically, many of these functions would have been performed serially. The lifecycle might start with the familiar “back of an envelope” sketch, quickly moving on to a proof-of- concept design. This version would not be expected to go into production. Instead, it would go through a series of revisions that focus on improving production cost, reliability and usability. Purchasing and supply- chain management plays a key role in this process by focusing not just on component pricing but continuity of

supply. In recent years, many electronics OEMs have embarked on a programme of supplier consolidation, in which they favour a small number of larger suppliers with which they can negotiate better pricing and ensure that all the components they require are available even in times of shortage. This can involve significant redesign to a proof-of-concept version to ensure that components selected by the engineering team fit the purchasing policy or that a waiver has been organised for key parts. Similarly, marketing and sales play key roles in product planning as they have the information available to them on how much they can charge and make reasonable predictions on sales levels assuming the system meets its objectives. If a product is too expensive, it will need to be redesigned to reduce its cost or have

32 l New-Tech Magazine Europe