PCB News - PCB process NPI's role and responsibilities in the company

PCB process NPI's role and responsibilities in the company

The role of NPI is a bridge between Factor and R&D. As the name suggests, it is a role to introduce newly designed products from [R&D unit] to the circuit board manufacturer. It is more appropriate to say that it is an "introduction" than it is to say that it is a "requirement" that the factory produces. But the factory also has to thank NPI, because without NPI, there will be no new products, and there will be no subsequent production.

Generally speaking, a new product is divided into several trial production phases in the R&D phase, such as EVT (Engineering Verification Test Phase), DVT (Design Verification Test Phase), PVT (Production Verification Test Phase), and sometimes the same phase There are more than two trial productions. The responsibility of NPI must be able to integrate all the resources of the manufacturing plant, coordinate production and management, and schedule and follow up with the trial production schedule. Since most companies hope that new products can be launched as soon as possible, the goal is of course to compete The opponents made an announcement to grab the market, so the trial production schedule is mostly very tight. Take our company’s example, if it is a complete machine production, from boarding to chassis assembly, it will be completed in a week or less; if it is only the assembly of the circuit board, it will be required in three working days or more. Completed in a short time.

In terms of experience, the biggest problem during trial production is usually unclear material conditions, followed by frequent engineering changes. Since new products are usually accompanied by new materials (parts that the company has never used before), there will be problems in the acquisition of new materials that lead-time is too long and the minimum order quantity (MOQ, Minimum Order Quantity) At this time, you will need the strong support of purchasing personnel to use the company's buying force or various methods to obtain the best delivery time and samples of the parts, sometimes even free samples. Frequent engineering changes will also increase the difficulty of material delivery. This issue generally involves the ability of R&D personnel and is not within the scope of this article. It is strongly recommended that all engineering changes must be made through the company’s PDM (Product Data Managment system makes engineering change (ECO, Engineering Change Order), although it is troublesome, but this can ensure the quality and avoid unnecessary disputes on tracking engineering problems in the future.

Some companies even require NPI to have a basic engineering background. When developing and designing new processes, they must point out production difficulties in a timely manner to avoid designing products that cannot be mass-produced; they must also require manufacturing plants to further improve their process capabilities to meet Nowadays, the design of smaller and smaller products is a challenge for manufacturing plants.

Some of my personal opinions on NPI:

This position is a manager's position, so if you want to be promoted to a manager, you can try. Maybe one day you can climb to a higher position.
You can become an NPI if you don't have much engineering experience. The most important thing is the principle of "being a person".
If you want to learn and understand all the work of a company from R&D to production, this position is a good choice. But, don’t forget, you learn too much and complex, which means you don’t learn well and know everything, but you may know everything.
If your manufacturing plant is a foundry, you will speak louder; if it is your own company's manufacturing plant, remember to lower your body.
Usually it is a person who works alone. It is necessary to rely on the cooperation of those odd-tempered engineers and purchasers. It is best to have a very soft body. If the company attaches great importance to this position and makes NPI cry that the water will freeze, it is a different matter.
This position has always been a difficult but thankless role in our company.

The following is a company's requirements for NPI:

Coordinate process, manufacturing and logistics for all activities for a product launch. Prototype series, Pre Series, Full Run Test and production release.
Establish and follow up project time schedules. Including resource planning.
Establish and follow up Action Plans.
Work together with R&D team for product design and process design related issues.
Handle design reviews for process team and secure produce ability of product.
Involve in manufacturing cost analysis, make production cost calculation. Cycle time, efficiency, labor ...
Analyze and handle customer requirements including manufacturing, process and so on.
Work as Technical interface between customer and company.
Report project status in Program review meeting.
Report progress to operation manager.

Here are some descriptions of the new product development stage:

EVT: Engineering Verification Test (Engineering Verification Test Phase)
Generally, this stage is an engineering sample, which is used for debugging and verification for R&D engineers. Many things have just been designed, and there are still many problems. Some are even experimental. R&D engineers may still be testing feasible design schemes. All possible design problems must be proposed and corrected one by one. Therefore, the focus is on design integrity and whether there are any Missing any specifications.
DVT: Design Verification Test (Design Verification Test Phase)
This is the second stage of research and development, and all design ideas should be completed. The focus is to find out the design and manufacturing problems, to ensure that all designs meet the specifications. And can be produced.
PVT: Production Verification Test (production verification test phase)
The product design at this stage has been completed, and all design verification has come to an end. The purpose of trial production is to do a large number of pre-production manufacturing process tests, so a certain amount of products must be produced, and all production procedures must comply with the standard procedures of the manufacturer.

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