As an ISV or OEM, you must focus on what will grow your business and leveraging the right partner will help you do just that. In this second of five articles on NEI’s 5-Point LEAD System, you will see how certain control mechanisms for servers, hardware appliances and frame integration control surface as key to choosing the right partner.
Design and manufacturing control
The most important outputs of manufacturing are quality, predictability and repeatability. But what things need to be in place to guarantee these outputs? It typically begins in the design phase. This is where the solution requirements should be recorded in a lifecycle database which governs revisions, change alerts and approvals. The next step is to ensure that each step of the manufacturing process aligns with build requirements. And finally, quality checkpoints throughout the process should be in place to guarantee the right parts are installed and verified before proceeding to the next step. This level of process and control ensures predictability and repeatability in your solution. Additionally, capturing this level of detail throughout the process provides a tremendous service advantage should troubleshooting be required later in the lifecycle.
Scalable manufacturing
Another thing to consider is your partner’s ability to scale with your demands? Will you have the ability to build high volumes to forecast as well as low volumes to order? Do they have multiple manufacturing sites that enable you to scale production globally? Your partner should have the capacity to scale production to meet your low-, medium-, or high-volume needs. You don’t want your supply chain disrupted by sudden increases or decreases in demand. A provider capable of rapid scaling can help maintain your inventory at proper levels.
Additionally, you may need specific manufacturing capabilities like enterprise rack and stack or telco frame-level integration. Does your partner offer complete design, manufacturing, assembly and test capabilities? Do you require reliability testing and is compliance to Bellcore standards important to your solution? The bottom line is whether you need small platforms or complete frame/rack integration to meet your product requirements, your partner should deliver consistent, quality outputs that you can trust.
If you are still debating what type of manufacturing partner you need, look at the overall operations and consider: full change control management to ensure accuracy and lower costs; as well as quality processes to streamline manufacturing cycles and lengthen the product’s lifespan.
Quality at every stage
Finally, ISO 9001 and TL9000 certifications ensure you are dealing with an organization maintaining best-in-class business processes providing consistent, high-quality production and on-time delivery of goods and services for manufacturing and telecommunications products. It can also be essential to your own quality compliance when moving your product up the supply chain.
Who to call on
NEI is capable of delivering all of the above manufacturing and integration services. Working with NEI to build your solution allows you to focus on your core competency and reduce costs.