Project Success Story 1–Obsolescence Management
Challenge:
A communications modem had components that were going end-of-life (EOL). The customer didn't wish to incur the added cost of product re-certification or make a lifetime buy that would have required them to purchase two years of inventory of the EOL components.
Solution: Tailyn's design team identified alternate components that could replace the EOL parts. While the substitutions did require PCB re-layout, the redesign involved only minor changes in pin placements, so no re-certification was required.
Results:
The product's lifecycle was extended beyond the two years available had the lifetime buy been made, and inventory requirements were kept at normal production levels.
Project Success Story 2–Engineering Support
Challenge:
In 2005, a communications customer was having difficulty selling its leaded communication line card products into Europe because of planned adoption of RoHS requirements. The customer didn't have sufficient engineering support staff resources to redesign the products to meet RoHS requirements and was considering classifying the product line as EOL.
Solution: Tailyn's component engineering team converted the non-RoHS components into RoHS components, and updated the BOM.
Results:
A product line that would have gone EOL in 2005 is still selling in 2009.
Project Success Story 3–Test Platform Development/Optimization
Challenge:
A communications customer wanted to cut test time by 60% and reduce manual labor in its wireless test process.
Solution: Tailyn's industrial engineering team studied the automated test equipment (ATE) platform prototype that the customer had developed. They then suggested an optimized ATE platform design that would achieve the customer's goals for test time reduction and operations cost improvement.
Results:
Tailyn took over the ATE platform development project which eliminated the need for the customer to commit internal test engineering resources to that project. Additionally, since the development effort was handled internally at Tailyn, coordination relative to training, calibration and test equipment optimization between the engineering and the production teams was handled seamlessly. The customer only had to send a technical representative to the facility once to approve the final project vs. the multiple visits normally required when consigned test equipment is used.
Project Success Story 4–Offshore New Product Introduction (NPI) Support
Challenge:
A U.S. communication customer wanted to streamline their product development process for a communication aggregation unit by having NPI efforts done by the offshore production facility vs. handled locally and then transferred offshore.
Solution: NPI support integrates well into Tailyn's business model of supporting variable demand product. Tailyn applied its DFM expertise and worked closely with the customer's team to ensure all project objectives were met.
Results:
Tailyn's engineering team handled DFM and prototyping efficiently, meeting the customer's expectations for both quality and delivery performance. Tailyn's U.S. office was able to provide local support throughout the process. Additionally, as the BOM and AVL were finalized, Tailyn's team was able to make recommendations that leveraged component commonality with the customer's existing production projects. The end result of utilizing existing materials to reduce total customer inventory line item count, was reduced material leadtime, minimized inventory liability and improved logistics efficiency.
Product Success Story 5–DFM Recommendations
Challenge:
A gaming machine OEM was experiencing a 50% yield rate on motherboard production at the contract manufacturer they originally selected. This problem both raised costs and made it difficult to meet end customer demand. The customer approached Tailyn as a potential alternate source if the manufacturing issues could be resolved.
Solution: Tailyn's manufacturing engineering team analyzed the design and made design for manufacturability (DFM) recommendations.
Results:
After accepting Tailyn's recommendation to re-layout on the PCB, the product now is being produced at Tailyn at a 93% yield rate, which is an 85% improvement over the previous builds at competing contract manufacturers.