Volume Production Made Easier: Paramit’s New Product Introduction (NPI) Services

Many companies face challenges bringing their prototypes to market efficiently and cost effectively. Transitioning a prototype to the production environment not only requires additional resources, but also a mindset and process focused on solving small problems as early as possible to preempt them from become larger and more expensive to solve once volume production has begun.

Paramit's New Product Introduction (NPI) services are developed expressly for this purpose. Our NPI teams are knowledgeable, agile, and have the autonomy to make rapid decisions.

We use a "fast track" process for NPI that meets customers' needs for quick changes without the time delays inherent in a more formal process. During our NPI phase for board- or system-level products, we provide feedback to your design team to improve manufacturability, quality and reliability, and reduce the cost of the product when it goes to volume production. Our approach also reduces or eliminates sustaining engineering requirements post-launch.

Real-World NPI Examples

• Engineering support: Our customer had GUPI boards with very low yields of 50%, and their technicians kept replacing the same parts to get a pass. Paramit's engineering team analyzed the circuit together with FAE at Linear Tech, and determined that there was a tolerance stack-up issue. The solution was to change the values of four capacitors and two inductors in order to get all tests to pass. We then implemented ISI ECO C29282 to make the changes permanent so that our customer could continue on towards successful volume production.

• Quick turn: As often happens, our customer needed its boards built very quickly to validate that design changes had actually fixed a problem they were experiencing. Paramit came to the rescue and delivered assembled boards in less than 48 hours, putting the engineering team back on track.

• DFM Feedback: Our customer wanted to ensure that its board was built correctly the first time. Paramit's NPI team had provided DFM feedback that was built into the board, and the first pass build was clean with no design or manufacturing defects. An issue was discovered, however, with one of the BGAs warping during SMT reflow. We escalated the matter to the component supplier, a major semiconductor company. The supplier initially rejected our findings and claimed that no other customers had experienced such a problem. Paramit persisted and provided X-ray images and other supporting documentation that demonstrated that the BGA in question was not fully compatible with a standard lead free process. The supplier then provided a new revision of the part that solved the problem. Best of all, during this extensive investigation, Paramit continued to deliver prototypes to our customer's engineering team by using another method to solder the problem BGA (SRT machine).

Next Steps

• Learn more about our NPI services
• Request a consultation with Paramit's NPI team