Large volume manufacturing advices

[jm_sanz]

Good morning folks,

Its been some years since I have been sending, never more than tens of units, my designs to either PCBWay or JLCPCB. However, now running my own electronics business, manufacturing volumes have largely increased up to thousands (2kW grid inverters). I am afraid of the lack of control manufacturing that China gives me but still see large companies as Apple, Enphase, ... manufacturing there so there must be a way and some pros.

1. Does any body have any experience that would like to share about large quantities manufacturing in China?

2. Is this recommendable to open a subsidiary company in the region? I guess somebody has to manage the importation process.

3. Do you use the aforementioned companies or are there some hidden ones for larger volumes?

4. Same applies to Malaysia. Any well known manufacturer?

5. Do they test your PCBs with a PCB Test Fixture?

6. Do you usually keep part of the production in a more stable country?

 Thanks in advance

[nctnico]

I'd look at Taiwan. They are more oriented towards the west and might be easier to deal with. With the current geo-political conditions, I'd avoid needing to rely on anything from China. However, I would look at Europe first because there are assemblers around with good pricing. Production is mostly automated and pick & place machines cost the same so with large volumes you are just paying for time to use the machines.

About testing: Every production company I have worked with can do testing using a test-jig.

[jm_sanz]

Thank you for the reply!

Yes, that is for sure. Some clients are now requesting that the manufacturing of their products has nothing to do with China (willing to mantein same target price though ).

Any known Taiwan or European manufacturer that is price competitive with China?. In Europe I have only dealt with KSG GmbH, Eurocircuits and some Spanish ones that tend to be most pricy.

However, I do not see Apple or a large company dealing with a company like PCBWay. Do you know how they manage this?

BR,

Miguel.

[tszaboo]

Thank you for the reply!

Yes, that is for sure. Some clients are now requesting that the manufacturing of their products has nothing to do with China (willing to mantein same target price though ).

Any known Taiwan or European manufacturer that is price competitive with China?. In Europe I have only dealt with KSG GmbH, Eurocircuits and some Spanish ones that tend to be most pricy.

However, I do not see Apple or a large company dealing with a company like PCBWay. Do you know how they manage this?

BR,

Miguel.

European manufacturers can be competitive with Chinese ones in the thousands of units quantities.
You have to consider import tariffs, and travel cost, delays when making a full calculation. I can get in the car go on site and do my legally required inspections.
We cannot recommend you an assembly house. You have to select one that's not too big and not too small for your purposes. If you are too small for them, they are not going to cater your needs. If you are too big for them, they go out of business if you don't order from them regularly. These assembly houses in Europe have their regular client base, those will order so many boards from them. If you get bad quotations, you are asking the wrong company. These companies will often give you a "go away please" pricing. Approach the company that's the right size, and negotiate pricing.

However, I do not see Apple or a large company dealing with a company like PCBWay. Do you know how they manage this?

Why would they? They are doing business with Foxconn, a company that has thousands of times more employees than PCBWay. Apple has their own people doing quality control on site.

[nctnico]

Thank you for the reply!

Yes, that is for sure. Some clients are now requesting that the manufacturing of their products has nothing to do with China (willing to mantein same target price though ).

Any known Taiwan or European manufacturer that is price competitive with China?. In Europe I have only dealt with KSG GmbH, Eurocircuits and some Spanish ones that tend to be most pricy.

I don't know about pricing but you could try: https://www.abselectronic.de One of my customers uses(d) them for producing boards in medium volumes (500 to 1000 piece per batch AFAIK).

[Feynman]

Get in touch with a contract manufacturer (CM) in your region. A CM buys bare boards and parts and then does assembly and test usually "at home".
A CM usually has close business relationships to many bare board manufacturers and part distributors/manufactures and can chose the option that fits your requirements best.

[PlainName]

If I may trespass for a moment...

With manufacturing in the thousands, and given the previous note about choosing a manufacturer that is not too big or too small, is it reasonable to spread the load and have two (or more) manufacturers? My thinking is that you can tailor the load to the manufacturer's capacity, and if one should have unforeseen 'issues' you're not disabled while they sort it out (or you find someone else).

(Note: I have no knowledge of this level of manufacturing so I am asking for enlightenment rather than for arguing.)

[Doctorandus_P]

One thing that makes rework faster is to put all polarized parts (Electrolytic capacitors, LED's) in the same orientation.

[coppice]

Q: What does a Chinese electronics factory call a requirement for a few thousand units?
A: Pilot production.

Q: What does a Chinese electronics factory call a requirement to assemble 10k units a day?
A: Modest volume.

It is ridiculous to make any comparison with people like Apple. They make things in such huge volumes that have their own team in the area ensuring things so smoothly. If you are small enough that you have to interact with sub-contractors from a distance be afraid. Be very afraid.

[nctnico]

One thing that makes rework faster is to put all polarized parts (Electrolytic capacitors, LED's) in the same orientation.

This is a very good thing to do for any production volume. Actually, for smaller production runs which are inspected manually, it makes the most sense. I've learned to do this very early on in my career. Even if it makes the layout slightly less optimal, the savings in post production checking and repair costs make up for it.

[tszaboo]

If I may trespass for a moment...

With manufacturing in the thousands, and given the previous note about choosing a manufacturer that is not too big or too small, is it reasonable to spread the load and have two (or more) manufacturers? My thinking is that you can tailor the load to the manufacturer's capacity, and if one should have unforeseen 'issues' you're not disabled while they sort it out (or you find someone else).

(Note: I have no knowledge of this level of manufacturing so I am asking for enlightenment rather than for arguing.)

Yes. For starters, you want more than 1 quote, and have options.
And if you have more than 1 product, you might want to produce it at different places.

[Siwastaja]

Try to exhaust the local options first. For us, a decent CM capable of doing some hundreds yet easily transitioning into tens of thousands if needed, was just 15 kilometers from us, and ended up a lot cheaper than China. With China, the problem is that some parts are very expensive (like some connectors we wanted to use) - first they import them with expensive duties to China, then the finished products need to be imported back and you again pay duties. We looked at it and there is no small-scale process to waive these double duties. If your design is currently based on getting reasonable stuff from Digikey's or Mouser's catalog, you would have to do full "China optimization" to your BOM (possibly affecting the design as a whole because there are no direct replacement to everything) to leverage the cost advantage.

[coppice]

Try to exhaust the local options first. For us, a decent CM capable of doing some hundreds yet easily transitioning into tens of thousands if needed, was just 15 kilometers from us, and ended up a lot cheaper than China. With China, the problem is that some parts are very expensive (like some connectors we wanted to use) - first they import them with expensive duties to China, then the finished products need to be imported back and you again pay duties. We looked at it and there is no small-scale process to waive these double duties. If your design is currently based on getting reasonable stuff from Digikey's or Mouser's catalog, you would have to do full "China optimization" to your BOM (possibly affecting the design as a whole because there are no direct replacement to everything) to leverage the cost advantage.

Perhaps you were looking at the wrong options in China. Import and export can be a huge PITA doing things in China. However, if you use a CM in a free port area, the import and export duty issues should mostly go away. If you deal with people who mostly serve local markets, they aren't usually set up to deal with these things.

[Jackster]

We are seeing quite a few companies move manufacturing from Asia back to the west since COVID.
Not only was 2019-2020 a wake up call, geo-political issues and issues with trust have greatly increased.

Not to mention that Chinese assembly costs, unless if you are a big manufacturer like Apple, not actually that much cheaper than local CMs. Sometimes you are better off paying a little extra and getting those assurances and local support over saving a few cents on each unit.
That and you are supporting your local or regional economy which means your money stays more local and eventually returns a little back to you.


I am happy to give you a quote. I'm based in England but UK to EU is not actually as bad as people make it out to be.
Verses importing the same amount from China, customs can actually be cheaper importing goods from England on the same value. So it sort of works out to be around the same anyway.

[jane810314]

Find a factory focus middle or mass production match with your orders, I think PCBWay and JLCPCB are specilized in sample and small orders. They may just follow your original design to produce and never check the correctness of the design.

Tell your supplier the acceptance standard and technology requirements. And don't worry the test, all PCBs will make circuit open/short test before outgoing in any factory.