Page 206 - Six Sigma for electronics design and manufacturing

Six Sigma Quality and Manufacturing Costs of Electronics Products
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or developing the internal learning curve for the necessary expertise
can be prohibitively high.
The electronics industry has followed many other industries into
this pattern. The automobile industry is a prime example. In the ear-
ly part of the last century, there were hundreds of auto manufactur-
ers, and any of the competing technologies could have become domi-
nant: electric, steam, or internal combustion. The computer industry
has gone through the stages discussed above for various products.
Mainframes have all but disappeared, the personal computers have
become a commodity industry, with exchangeable software programs
and plug-in PCBs and modules.
This chapter is mainly focused on electronic products in the maturi-
ty or commodity stages, since the emphasis is on quality and cost.
Maintaining a good level of cost accuracy during the development
stage is important in the success of later stages of the life cycle of
technological products.
6.1.1 The use of the quality and cost model to achieve
world-class cost and quality
The cost and quality model developed in this chapter can be used at
the earliest possible time in design to develop an accurate estimate of
quality and cost of new products and to help design and manufactur-
ing engineers make tradeoffs in material and manufacturing equip-
ment acquisition and selection.
The design of new electronic products can be partitioned effectively
into modules, each comprising units or collections of PCBs, mechani-
cal parts and assemblies, software, and special requirements such as
hybrid integrated circuits. As described in earlier chapters, a quality
assessment of the design of each part up to the completed product can
be undertaken to determine the quality of the design and the pro-
posed manufacturing plan. The results of this process will input into
the quality and cost model.
The model can also be interconnected to a simulation of the current
manufacturing process as it exists in equipment and work flow. The
results of adding the new product to the factory can be shown clearly
through the model. The manufacturing equipment can be reorganized
for better work flow or new machines can be added and their impact
on cost and quality shown. In addition, a cost-effective test strategy
can be developed from the quality attributes of design and manufac-
turing, as well as a strategy to most efficiently remove defects by us-
ing the various test equipment available, as was discussed in Chapter
4.