PCBA Tech - Difference between one-stop service contractor and non-contractor for PCBA

PCBA manufacturer is in the 21st century. Many new electronic products and technologies will be updated iteratively and quickly. As the most important core component of electronic products, PCBA processing industry has been highly valued by major enterprises in the industry. The quality, delivery time and cost of PCBA processing industry will directly affect the quality, delivery time and cost of the entire product delivery.

At present, the well-known PCBA agent companies in the world are well-known enterprises such as Foxconn, Weifang, BYD and so on. They have been cooperating with many well-known international electronics product developers. Their success cases lead to the processing methods of modern electronics manufacturing services, which can be summarized as two main types: incoming materials processing and contracting materials. At present, more and more enterprises in all major industries choose the PCBA package mode. Why are more and more enterprises choosing PCBA contract materials now? So what are the problems these two modes will encounter in real life? The following is a brief discussion and analysis by IPCB.

1. Conceptual Description

1). PCBA package is actually a processing method, including finding all the processing processes of PCB circuit board production, raw material purchase, SMT processing, PCBA testing, product assembly, etc. in PCBA processing. Simply put, the purchaser places the order with the supplier, then the supplier delivers the finished PCBA to the customer, and the intermediate process is all done by the supplier.

2). The difference between PCBA package and PCBA package is that all the materials on BOM are supplied by the purchaser, and the supplier is responsible for production only, which is equivalent to processing from incoming materials.

2. Brief Analysis of Two Ways

1) PCBA contractors do not include materials, the advantages are: the quality and brand of each material are relatively controllable; The disadvantage is: facing a large number of component suppliers, it is not easy to control them as a whole, procurement corruption is easy to occur, and more personnel are required. The threat is that once a large number of suppliers have a supplier supply problem, it will involve a complete set of supply problems.

2) PCBA contractor materials, the advantages are: integrated supply chain channels, hold better bargaining rights, reduce the number of suppliers, avoid the passive situation that PCBA manufacturers are looking for everywhere, and save a lot of other processing time, such as; Sign contract terms, order follow-up, process payment, ERP operations, etc. The disadvantage is: there may be problems with raw material quality and brand control of raw materials; Threats are: Timely payment may lead to overall material supply problems; However, there is also an opportunity for PCBA contractor materials to reduce labor costs by investing less personnel in disguised financing (account negotiation), and large PCBA suppliers have greater bargaining power for raw materials, which can follow the cost reduction simultaneously.

3. Current Mainstream Ways

The choice of two PABA processing modes, PCBA contract processing and incoming processing, has always been difficult for enterprises to choose, everything will have two sides.

Combined with comprehensive analysis and evaluation, PCBA contractor package can save time, cycle, inventory and other cost issues for customers. The electronic processing mode of PCBA contractor package can free enterprises from electronic manufacturing links, and avoid investment in electronic material procurement, storage, outbound, logistics and personnel. At present, this method is becoming the preferred choice for system integrators and product manufacturers.

However, considering the confidentiality of some core integrated chips and some burning programs for production, the more mainstream way is to use part of the package method, that is, the core chips are provided by the enterprise, other PCB, blocking container parts are provided by the PCBA processing plant. At the same time, simple testing and burning are done by the PCBA processing plant, and responsible and core program burning and testing are done in the enterprise factory.

4. Potential Derived Risks of PCBA Contracted Packages

In the process of PCBA contractor package service, it is very important to review the supplier, which almost determines the key to the success of the cooperation, and whether the cost and product turnover can achieve the expected goals. Undeniably, the market is also full of businesses that make excess profits by sacrificing customer quality and stealing raw materials, but after all, this is not sustainable. Therefore, the selection of PCBA contractor materials suppliers should be included in the scope of cooperation of strategic cooperation suppliers. Of course, the procurement corruption of such key suppliers in the import process also needs the attention of enterprises.