The RESCO Electronics Blog

As you may be aware, on May 4, 2015, RESCO announced its merger with J-Rad Technical Services. J-Rad is a thirty-year-old manufacturer of cable harnesses and assemblies based in Spartanburg, South Carolina. With the addition of J-Rad to the RESCO family, we welcome new customers, an outstanding staff and expanded capabilities. We believe it is these expanded capabilities that will have the most significant long-term benefit to all of our customers.

With ever increasing emphasis on manufacturing cost reduction, it is important for designers to review new products for ease of manufacturing and test.  Products designed with the manufacturing process in mind will cost less. There are four fundamental considerations when designing an electromechanical assembly for manufacturing efficiency: component selection, production processes, test and inspection, and documentation.

Today more than ever manufacturers are learning the importance of being able to trace their products.  Sometimes knowing where and when the product was manufactured is sufficient but often a manufacturer must be able to trace sub-components and even raw materials back to the original source.  If your traceability requirements go beyond just place and time of final manufacturing and you need to reach back into your supply chain, partnering with a contract manufacturer that has the experience and systems to support traceability is critical.

In many respects a company is like a person. Just like a person, a company (or any other organization for that matter) is born, grows, ages, and eventually dies. Although some companies, the longest-lived companies, find ways to re-invent themselves and extend their lives. Some manage to re-invent themselves time and time again and persist for very long periods of time (think Walt Disney, Wal-Mart, or Procter & Gamble).   In “Built to Last” authors Jim Collins and Jerry Porras studied why some companies are able to continually re-invent themselves and prosper while others’ lives are short and success modest.  What they found is that these long-lived companies all share a common trait; that of having a strong core ideology. This doesn’t mean that they shared the same core ideology, but rather they share the trait of having their own strongly-held core ideology that has remained consent through time.

As a part of a development team for a laboratory automation system or clinical analyzer, you and your colleagues have been chosen to develop the specimen traceability portion of the instrument. In your mind you believe this should be a fairly easy task, correct? Now tell me, what automation technology will you chose? Will it be laser-based or image-based, and what do you have to consider prior to making your decision?

We are all looking for ways to improve our bottom line, and sometimes that takes some creativity.  In our earlier blogs we discussed how procurement professionals have much to offer in helping companies achieve their cost saving objectives by doing more with less.  An increasing trend to help reach these goals is to create a Preferred Supplier Program by optimizing your supplier base.

On June 26^th 1974, the era of barcoding began when the UPC code was read on a pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum at a grocery store in Ohio. During the next 40 years, the use of barcodes has grown to where we see it in every facet of our daily lives including UPC codes on a gallon of milk, QR codes in magazine advertisements, and 2D codes on hospital patient’s wristbands that provides the caregiver with patient data. Over this time, the technology around the barcodes themselves, as well as the hardware, has evolved and continues to evolve today.

Today there is more pressure than ever on product design and procurement professionals. The 2014 GEP Trend Report on Strategic Sourcing & Procurement highlights that those pressures are only going to increase.

While the survey itself was geared to sourcing, design engineers are under the same pressure.  As we reference below, speeding up new product introductions is critical to the long-term success of OEMs.  Identifying the best components and suppliers can go a long way to making that a reality.

Not only are OEMs under a mandate to reduce the cost of their products, they’re also charged with improving product quality and capability at the same time.  What’s more is that the rate of change and complexity only seems to be increasing.

A difficult task for any company is reviewing bids and proposals for cables, harnesses, or electromechanical assemblies and determining the best to select.  The final cost, while key, is not the only important factor to consider. This is particularly true when proposals come from companies that are offering to complete the work at an offshore manufacturing facility.

When you start to look for a contract manufacturing partner for cable assemblies, wire harnesses, and electromechanical sub-assemblies, you have to consider a number of different criteria. One of the most important but often misunderstood is the country in which production will take place. The location, perhaps more than any other single factor, will affect the overall cost. Asia has been one of the most sought after locations for production because it is believed to be the least expensive. However, logistics challenges, quality issues, and rising labor costs in Asia have led to Mexico becoming an extremely attractive option in many instances.