System Integration

Global manufacturing

UNICOM Engineering maintains worldwide manufacturing sites and can scale production capabilities to meet any low-, medium- or high-volume requirements. Our production engineers and assembly technicians are highly trained to build a wide variety of systems—from small security or healthcare server appliance to highly complex ATCA platforms, frames, and everything in between. All locations maintain the exact same processes and procedures so that customers can utilize a mix of manufacturing locations to meet their production and cost goals while reducing overall risk. Our focused approach is designed to serve OEM customers with manufacturing expertise as well as comprehensive application deployment services.

Control systems

UNICOM Engineering employs control systems to ensure automated manufacturing processes. These systems operate across all manufacturing stations, at each manufacturing facility, to ensure predictable and repeatable builds for low-mix, high-volume products as well as high-mix, low-volume products. With these powerful tools, we are better able to globally maintain operational flexibility, build high-quality products, and meet all facets of our customers’ requirements, including production scalability, reliability, and cost containment.

During the product development phase, all design and manufacturing requirements are recorded in a product lifecycle database, which governs revision controls and the process for subsequent change alerts. We use a versatile ERP system to synch our inventory and materials procurement to sales orders and forecasts, which helps us respond to changing requirements.

Control and quality checkpoints throughout the manufacturing process guarantee the right parts are installed and electronically verified. Our quality processes help streamline manufacturing cycles and accelerate time-to-market.

UNICOM Engineering’s integration control systems, tools, and processes provide a tremendous service advantage. Customers receive a complete and detailed system build plan, including a list of installed components and corresponding code levels. Should troubleshooting be required, service technicians can refer to this document for configuration details (including revision levels of microprocessors, memory chips, analog, and digital circuitry as well as lot numbers for many critical components) and specify the proper repair or replacement parts.

UNICOM Engineering's Integration Control Systems
The diagrams show the systems used to ensure a fully integrated, repeatable build:

Systematic control

Our quality and control processes help streamline manufacturing cycles and lengthen the product’s lifespan. These controls are uniformly used across all manufacturing sites and stations to ensure predictable and repeatable builds. Hence, UNICOM Engineering is better able to maintain operational flexibility, build higher quality products, and meet all facets of our customers’ requirements, including reliability and cost containment.

Accuracy guaranteed

UNICOM Engineering employs eQProfiler and FactoryTalk software to ensure that each step of the manufacturing process aligns with exact build requirements (see figure 2). These tools provide control and quality checkpoints for specific SKUs throughout the manufacturing process to guarantee the right parts are installed and electronically verified before proceeding to downstream installation or test stations. All assembly stages are tracked and controlled in real-time to eliminate errors and deliver the highest quality products available to our customers.

UNICOM Engineering’s Manufacturing Process
Our manufacturing process is designed to accelerate product development, eliminate errors, and document lifecycle control processes:

Quality at every stage

UNICOM Engineering's commitment to quality workmanship is governed by strict compliance to ISO 27001, ISO 9001:2015, TL 9000 Rev. 5.5, and ISO 14001. Our entire staff is trained and certified under these standards to ensure consistent, high-quality production and on-time delivery of goods and services. We adhere to these processes to assure customers of the highest quality workmanship and that their systems comply with global regulations. We also contract with third-party auditors to guarantee a proactive and highly organized approach to maintaining best-in-class business processes. TL 9000 compliance is explicitly managed for our customers who require telecommunications quality standards.

Benefits

• Ensures high-quality manufacturing and test processes
• Enables traceability to critical system components
• Controls high-mix, configure-to-order system builds
• Generates highly structured, predictable and repeatable BOMs
• Produces fully integrated, best-in-class systems and frames

Quality reporting

UNICOM Engineering's quality assurance engineers regularly analyze in-house data and field performance trends (see figure 3) to understand the root cause and drive continuous improvement. Customers can view and download SKU-specific quality reports monthly from UNICOM Engineering's customer portal. These reports include data summaries, Pareto charts, and detailed tables, in which failures can be identified and grouped by product or workstation.

UNICOM Engineering's System Field Performance Report Example
This is an example of a customer-specific field performance report used to drive root cause analysis and continuous improvement:

UNICOM Engineering's Top 10 Systems Pareto Report Example
This is an example of a WIP analysis report depicting the top pareto of failures over a given period and what areas in the test they failed. We then define action plans to determine root and at what point in the examination they failed:

Rack integration

UNICOM Engineering provides world-class rack and frame-level design and integration services for solutions entering an enterprise or carrier environment that demands a higher level of integration services. Our technology integration centers located in Massachusetts and Texas in the United States and Galway, Ireland deliver a complete design, verification, staging, assembly, test, and shipping capabilities. All of which are scalable to support a variety of volume deployments and high-mix architectures. We assist customers with the initial designs, create efficient build and verification plans, manage and prototype all modifications, and ensure compliance with required standards. Since the nature of these engagements is varied, service fees are based on a statement of work outlining specific requirements with a custom quote.

From the initial design engagement, UNICOM Engineering documents requirements that later become detailed work and test instructions developed to guarantee repeatable and consistent builds. As we progress to the mechanical build phase, our team assembles the rack and integrates the power distribution panels, servers, storage, switches, and other vital components. We then route and identify cables for each system, based on customer requirements, and test the entire integrated rack for performance and functionality. The fully-integrated rack is then shipped in custom packaging for arrival at any site, ready for local installation and operation.

Carrier environments like Telco central offices have unique requirements that go beyond enterprise rack-level design and Integration. For solutions deployed in these environments, our frame-level design starts with a NEBS compliant frame. We optimize the frame space for thermal profiles, cooling, and configuration to allow for proper ventilation between systems and alleviate space constraints. Thermal testing can be performed in our heat-controlled room with temperatures up to 105° F (40° C) for enhanced production stress testing.

Additionally, UNICOM Engineering can perform elevated temperature testing on an individual or multiple systems and fully-integrated frame enclosures for design validation and production. Systems can be tested in a thermal chamber at temperature profile ranges from -67° to 131° F (-55° to +55° C). These stringent tests ensure systems are able to meet the strictest requirements of carrier and service provider deployments.