Tweaking Electronics Keeps Development Costs Down

. Limitations to project costs and development time are often driven by a short market lifespan, or pressure to fill an immediate need, so leveraging an existing design can be the only viable path.

In other cases, equipment may meet needs in a general sense, but lack the necessary specificity for more unique or complex applications. Furthermore, some purchasers of electronics require a level of reliability that cannot necessarily be guaranteed in a young product, regardless of how rigorous the prototyping phase may be.

The challenge, then, is finding incremental improvements to existing electronics, called tweaks, which can be introduced. Tweaks can be as small as replacing a few components with newer devices having better specs. More extensive tweaks may involve adding an additional analog input or output, adding a display, adding a micro-controller to partially automate a manual switch interface or adding a LAN module to provide a computer interface. Since tweaks are smaller projects, the risks are often much lower and the development time much shorter.

The physical form of a new product can have a significant impact on what can be leveraged. Even when packaging changes significantly, the circuit design might still remain largely intact and only require a re-design of circuit boards. If size reduction is critical, increased integration may solve that issue without dramatically changing the circuit design. It is important to look for these opportunities to tweak before committing to wholesale new product development.

Electronic product development requires considerable resources, including professionally trained staff, lab equipment, schematic and PC layout resources, parts inventory beyond that required for the product, documentation support, electronic assembly, manufacturing capacity and Q&A testing to guarantee product specs. When a business does not have this infrastructure, which is frequently the case, an outsourced service can be a more cost effective solution. It is critical to do this evaluation early in the concept and specification phases.

There are several concerns to address when determining possible tweaks. The most basic are the physical, technology, cost and time constraints. Other questions include what components can be replaced to gain new features or specs, and if new features can be provided as independent module additions. From a design and production perspective, it may be important to determine how modular the existing design is, if the features can be prioritized based on their cost to tweak and if new features can be added with software/firmware only.

by:TerryRettig

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