Product design activity for electronics and IT products doesn't include only making a product appealing or aesthetically appreciable. Materials used to manufacture products play a key role in how the finished product will be received by customer, how it will be used and where. Choosing a material instead of another one may affect commercial and technical success or failure when entering to the market.

Choice of material is also important considering technical constraint and pricing point. For example, if you plan your product to be a consumer outdoor product submitted to stress and if you choose to make a plastic casing, the plastic material and the brand chosen for this material will not be the same than if your product is dedicated to be used indoor and for industrial environment with humidity.  

Plastic injection and parts making in China for electronics and IT products

Plastic is largely used in electronics and IT products manufacturing due to its cheap cost, molding capability (hence well adapted for mass production), strong capacity to handle shock and environment. It is also used for his high modularity of aesthetic aspect it can be given to.

For same plastic material you may find several different variant via different brand. For example, ABS material from Dupont is much more expensive than an ABS material from Sinopec, Chimei or LG. The resistance to the heat, to the humidity and to a shock will not be the same whereas both plastic are all ABS one.

The raw material has to be chosen according to the specifications, constraints of use. You will probably not use the same kind of plastic for a consumer alarm clock supposedly to be used in door and in a static place than for a mobile phone supposedly to be used in dirty roadwork outdoor environment.

PAG Electronics got deep understanding of those differences and consideration points. Leveraging our experience from manufacturing and plastic injection, we helps our customers to find the proper equation between technical and commercial point. 

 

Metal part molding, casting and machining in China for electronic and computer products

Metal can be used in product for several reason: mostly it will be for aesthetic aspect, thermal dissipation reason, shape and resistance constraint. Each material got his own specificity: some of them are highly thermally dissipative and allow to evacuate while other rather isolating. Some of them are well adapted to make a product light but in the other side it will not be strong enough to handle stress.

Making the choice of the right material (aluminium, zinc, tangsten, copper, steel etc...) combined to the right process (casting, extrusion or machining) may influence highly the price of a part and its performance.

Find the right material combined with the right pricing point can be challenging and can lead to complication on a later stage. For this reason PAG Electronics engineering team can support you with this heavy task to find the right material for your specific application.

 

 

Why perform firmware coding when doing product development for an electronic product ?

If chipset (Integrated Circuit) is the electronic brain of your product, then firmware (embedded software) is without any doubt the intelligence which is loaded inside this brain and used to perform task, action, operation by getting input in order to generate output. Without any intelligence the IC can not do anything and doesn't worth much more than its weight in silicium.

Unfortunately, when you develop a new product and buy an IC to build this new system, the vendor of the IC  doesn't supply you with the intelligence which you are supposed to load inside the brain of this components to make your product working. The reason of this is because from a single IC you can create so many different kind of system and configuration type that a one size fit all firmware simply doesn't exist. So, this is your duty to develop your own firmware to make the function of your system being active and workable. Those function may include: power management, input and output data management, memory management, data transmission management, ...

Because the firmware is the program managing interface between hardware and software, coding a firmware require both programming  and hardware skills. It also require a solid knowledge in the system architecture you are working on. Without this large knowledge, coding a firmware may be a complex task. It even add up one layer of difficulty when the documentation of the components is only supplied in Chinese language and not very well organized.

 

What solution we provide for firmware coding during product development of electronic or IT product ?

Firmware is one of the keystone of your electronics product. For this reason, in order to keep full control on the Intellectual Property of the product we develop for you,  (unless very special case) we code firmware in-house and keep having access to the source code.

Our firmware engineer take care to model the embedded software in order to achieve functionality requirement by implementing code development and testing.

 

How do we perform firmware coding ?

The firmware engineer will be mostly in charge of:

- Developing and coding firmware in order to achieve the product functionality and specification.

- Optimizing the code so that the IC can run the program more efficiently: run faster, with less instruction and consume less power

- Adapt and optimize user interface

 

What benefit do you get when contracting with us for firmware development

One of the main advantage of making us develop your firmware is you can control your product 100% without being dependant of your manufacturer for any customization you want to do on your product.

We work closely with IC manufacturer in China and Taiwan so we get local support and we have fast response. We can then design and customize firmware quickly and efficiently (which most of the Chinese manufacturer can do as they sub-contract firmware coding to other companies)

 

It worth mentioning that if duplicate a PCBA is easily doable by reverse engineering, doing so with a compiled firmware without having the source is much more challenging. On this base duplicate a product without having access the firmware is difficult. For this reason, being the only one to have access to it is strategically an advantage.

Designing PCBA and Developping Electronics Board for Product Development of Electronic or IT items in China

When developing a new electronic product, you will have to design a PCBA capable to meet your product functionality. Of course the cost of the bill of material of this PCBA will be very sensitive as directly it will influence your capacity to sell face to your competitor. The battle of the price is more and more present and this is on the bill of material which electronics component are part of that game is played.

For this reason choosing the right electronic solution and the right architecture is ultra important and is a key criteria which has to be taken seriously. On the market, for a same function or application to realize you may find various possibility. Some electronics architecture are designed in the USA, other in Europe, some in Taiwan, and other in China. Some of them have cheap main IC cost but require an extra set of all third party components around which increase the global cost. Other are all integrated IC but the main IC are more expensive per unit than the one which need to be added with other components around.

Not surprisingly, Asian one are the most competitive in terms of cost and their performance are steadily increasing to tend to reach western one.

If you plan for example to design a bluetooth gadget using bluetooth Low Energy, you can either use a CSR IC at high price increasing your Bill Of Material cost or you can use a chinese or taiwanese equivalent cheaper to realize the same function. Problem: the chinese or taiwanese IC will only come with chinese speaker customer support and a chinese written 800 page user manual.

Out of the cost, other criteria may affect your choice of IC: stability, reliability, availability, life cycle of IC, possibility to add some option for future version of your product (modularity).

Optimizing Electronic Design for Manufacturing in China

Our Electronic Engineering Services is fully dedicated to supply advice and decision plan about which components can be used and which one can not be used face to your requirement. We will scan all the solution possible to realize your product and we will choose the most appropriate one both in terms of performance, quality and cost.

Being able to choose and optimize the choice of an architecture and a solution require multiple skills: If having a strong technical background is essential, owning  a solid knowledge of the asian IC ecosystem and market is also crucial because it ables to choose the best calibrated system allowing to reduce the cost of the bill of material while not compromising quality and performance of the system.

Optimize cost by choosing the right component mean also being capable to take a component which is not oversized for the function required. Otherwise, for realizing the same function the cost of the bill of material will be too high and your competitor will have no difficulty to be placed on the market while you will be struggling with your high cost. Everything is a question of dosage, and this dosage require skills and knowledge.

Once the choice of this system being done, electronics design and engineering activities can start to give birth to the pcba by establish schematics, routing, and editing Gerber file. During this phase, the hardware engineer will take in consideration all the elements of the specifications of your requirement and will especially model his design face to the need of passing CE, ROHS, FCC, UL, WEEE certification.

The hardware engineer will work hand to hand with the mechanical engineer to make sure its PCBA and its components can fit the enclosure and other parts constraints.

 

Electronic Hardware Engineering in China for Product Development of Electronic and IT item 

The Electronics Hardware Engineer will especially be in charge of :

                - Selecting the right solution face to the specifications and target price

                - Establish the bill of material of the pcba

                - Establish Block Diagram of the electronic system

                - Draw schematics (component mapping)

                - Operate PCBA layout (will take in consideration certification requirement)

                - Edit Gerber file

                - Follow up with manufacturing for troubleshooting production

 

How you can benefit from our Electronic Hardware Engineering Service in China 

Considering, the bill of material optimization is crucial and understanding that the most cost effective components and solution are found in Asia, the benefit to develop electronics in Asia doesn't need to be demonstrated.

As we regularly monitor Asian electronics market to stay up to date about the last chipset being released by manufacturer you will benefit our expertise of electronics and asian ecosystem knowledge to accelerate and optimize the development of your product.

Working wtih an Electronic Product Development company in China

The reasons why our customers prefer to work with PAG Electronics than with an chinese factory is because the best products are usually not standard one you can find on the shelf of all OEM chinese manufacturers displaying their product online.

Our customers are usually inventors, designers, industrial firms willing to develop a unique product they already had in mind, while reducing cost, time to market, securing quality and intellectual property. They usually quickly weight pro and con of using a western service provider locally established in China to design and manufacture their product face to buying a product on the shelf or made by a chinese firm living by operating marketing and sales worldwide.

Our approach is rather to act as your R&D business unit capable to handle electronic product development rather than just another asian manufacturer focusing on production only.

Confidentiality, discretion, ethics, full dedication and of course experience and expertize, are mostly the key of our customers choice to us face to local companies.

 

Choosing us for your electronic product development and manufacturing in China

By working with us you will enjoy a fully dedicated project engineer to support your product development. 

Not only about technical and manufacturing point, but also in terms of market analysis and consumer understanding, you will benefit our expertise and experience to guide you in the most optimized way to develop your products. We have a very specifical approach of projects which include a global view of both marketing and manufacturing standpoint.

Not just an implementation and action, you will probably enjoy having an external point of view from people who are capable to have a wide and general overview of what is it to turn an idea into a marketing success.

We are ready to assist you from the beginning till the end to lead your project in a safe and optimized path from product development till manufacturing and delivery. 

 

Sustaining Quality for Electronic Manufacturing in China

In China, more than anywhere else quality is a big concern when talking about manufacturing process. After so many years managing production under other local factories roof we are able to make a short list of the reason why quality in China remains a big concern:

- Profit: top management like to squeeze cost at maximum to increase margin sometimes by exchanging raw materials. 

- Turn over: if you have chance to compare a western factory (or even a korean one) with a chinese one, you will see that turn over of employee is much higher in China than anywhere else. The worker who was trained last month about one specific product moved to another factory from yesterday to today for a better salary this month and the lack of procedure standardization make that new worker is not really aware of quality standard.

- Communication: most of time, senior overseas buyer will be managed by a young 20 years old fresh graduated with an english background as sales engineer. Communication is distorsed and informations are not transmitted properly, provoking mistake and quality/conformities issues.

- Ressources partiontionning: we have seen several time in the past a phenomena of partionning of white collar and blue collar making that sales people (who consider themselves as white collar) will never go on the production line (because it means they would mix with blue collar = workers low class) to check the production whose they are responsible for. In result, they most of time discover issue in the same time that customer.

- Salary payment terms: some factory pay their employees per pieces and not per hour or per day, resulting in making workers sometimes going too fast to increase their salary. In result, production are made so fast that products are not manufactured properly (glue, paint doesn't have time to dry properly sometimes)

- Anticipation and Responsibility: one of the biggest issue related to quality take source from lack of anticipation and responsibility handling.  

 

We manage Quality Control at different step of the production

PAG Electronics structured its organization and procedure to manage and optimize quality output for your electronic product manufacturing. Unlikely many company who handle only quality control and inspection at the end of the production line, we handle quality issue at the different stage of the sourcing, procurement and manufacturng process.

It give us full control on the production to avoid quality issue, late delivery, recall and complaint from the market. Our team has a substantial background in product inspection and quality control operation in Asia, and this from South Korea till Indonesia.

Be confident that with our expertise in supply chain management and quality management we have full capability to handle your production and make sure it get exempt from defectives.

 

 

Why to make prototype for electronic in China

When the engineering of your product is over then the product needs to be tested in real situation before attempting to pass certification. Prototyping is an essential step in product development phase because it is the moment when the engineering can be validated or when it is revealed that some corrections and adjustments have to be operated on the product. It would be not acceptable to start producing costly mould without verifying a minimum if the physical parts can be assembled properly and then finally discover some modification has to be done.

Prototyping allow to have a first feeling in hand of the product, to verify that parts are fitting well all together, that pcba is operational and working properly and to test ergonomic.

A prototype can be made of several parts: plastic, metal, and of course PCBA . Hence it requires to coordinate several different parties creating those parts prototype in order for each to elaborate its own puzzle part which in the end get assembled all together to make a full assembled prototype.

 

Our solution to realize electronic rapid prototyping in China 

To facilitate and accelerate the process of establishing assembled prototype we handle parts prototype making by managing and coordinating those different prototype maker and supplier. We have developed a network of sub-contractor specialized in performing prototyping both for parts and for PCBA.

Most of technology used for prototyping are depending on the requirement:  3D Printing, SLA&SLS, Vacuum Casting, CNC Machining, Painting and Printing.

 

What do you do during prototyping electronic or computer parts in China

Our Electronics Hardware Engineer, and our Mechanical Engineer will take care of preparing prototype with prototyper to create a golden sample as much close as possible as what the product will look like in the end. 

                - Prepare PCBA sample

                - Prepare metal parts sample

                - Prepare plastic parts sample

                - Perform assembly of all the parts

                - Test the full prototype

                - Operate correction and adjustment

 

Your benefit using our prototyping service

The prototype can be use in several way: First it is a right way to perform testing, validate the engineering, it is perfect to establish a first reference design but it is also an opportunity to have a physical product that can be introduced for marketing purpose to potential client and investor before engaging fund in mould manufacturing and mass production.

In some case for very small series or pilot run rapid prototyping via Vacuum Casting can be used as a substitute to mini mass production

Why perform Industrial Product Design in China for Electronics and IT Product Development

Nowadays, the competition is driven by innovation, marketing and sales. It is particularly true in an economic environment where everything go faster than ever before. In those terms, one way to overcome this issue is to be different than the competition.

If your product is the same than others, you don't make something original, you don't bring innovation and you can not sell your product with high price and high profit margin for the innovation added value that you supply.

Customers are human being and they base their buying decision according to their nature. Charming is one of those leverage which push to buying decision of a product. Product appearance is responsible for charming customer to purchase product. On this base, aesthetic, ergonomic and concept is as much important as functionality that a product supply.

There are an important number of designer on the planet and many have good idea and concept. It works well on paper and on 3D rendering. However, when it comes to the manufacturing capability, if their knowledge in manufacturing process is limited, they might hit the wall finding out their concept, design, material choice and arrangement are not working well for Asian manufacturing and then time and money has been wasted by working on something that could never exist because of manufacturing constraint.

 

How we help with Industrial Product Design in China for Electronic and IT product  

If Asian industrial designer may know well the manufacturing process and constraint, they may not know necessarily well the western trend and customer requirement. On the opposite, western industrial designers may not be fully up to date or knowledgeable about Asian manufacturing. So, taking one or the other would not optimize the product design.

At PAG Electronics we supply industrial design services performed by western industrial designers having spent several years involved in Asian manufacturing environment. In result, they combine best of both world:  they have double skills and have the advantage of both being western market trend oriented while in the same time they have capability to anticipate Asian manufacturing constraints and issue at the early stage.

 

How we perform Industrial Design of Electronic and IT product in China

The Industrial Product Designer is in charge of giving an identity to the product:  suggesting appearance, ergonomic, finishing, packaging. Hand to hand with the customer, he specifically defines and set some important key elements of the product.

Particularly, he is in charge of:

-          Perform structured ideation and brain storming

-          Define  market target of a product

-          Establish product concept

-          Suggest shape, material, finishing, style, color of product by considering mechanical and physical configuration

-          Optimize and establish ergonomic of the product

-          Create packaging design

 

The process is usually performed according to the following steps:

-          Brainstorming and ideation

-          Technical discussion

-          Sketching

-          3D Rendering

 

How you benefit from our Product Design for Manufacturing in Asia 

For those customers who are based overseas, it is an advantage for them to have access to valuable Industrial Product Designer capable to understand quickly their need while making sure the manufacturing constraint are anticipated even before the engineering is done.

 

It is a strength to save time by avoiding beginner mistake because it accelerate the product development cycle, the time to market and allow to avoid waste of money.

Why Project Management for Electronic Product Development in China is usefull

If you consider developing a new electronics product to offer to the market then you certainly understand what time to market mean and why efficiency is important when developing and manufacturing a product. For this reason, most of time a full time team will be necessary to handle product development while you will be focusing on developing your sales (not to mention the jetlag between where you live and China)

Today 95% of electronics product manufacturing is performed in Asia. China is increasing his skills, capacity, infrastructure, and capability. Government is highly supporting R&D in new technology and more and more advanced high tech company are developing themselves to try to compete with western IC manufacturers. Unfortunately they don't give access to foreign company easily unless you are Apple, Google, or if you are locally based.

Because an electronic product is including several type of components and parts (metal, plastic, rubber), if you want to control fully your product then you will have to manage the supply chain fully from the component till the final assembly. This, not only require to have sourced the right suppliers for each part and component but also to be capable to coordinate and manage them during the whole project.

Because the development of an electronic item involve several engineering field, it is required to coordinate and manage all the resources of those field in the same time: industrial product designer, electronic engineer hardware, electronic engineer firmware, mechanical engineer, raw materials supplier, material processor, components vendor, logistics provider, prototyper , laboratory, assembler, packaging supplier.

For each of them, you have to manage : planning, interaction with other entities, support , monitoring, budget control

One of the main reason why 90% people have idea and don't start is because they don't know where to start, because they don't know how to manage a project in a structured and organized way and because they miss important knowledge both technically and related to the environment (cultural gap / working difference).

 

How do we handle Project Management related to Product Development in China for an Electronic Product

For each project we contract for, a project engineer having a general engineering  background is allocated to your project and is in charge of taking care of the coordination of all those stakeholder, monitoring them, answering their question and confirming every point that could slow down or stop the evolution of your product development.

This project engineer has a general knowledge of electronic, mechanic, manufacturing and quality control in Asia and he is also in charge to communicate with you about the project follow up. He plays the role of team leader and orchestrate the synergy in the product development team.

We use an online project management system to follow up with every step of your project so that you can also follow up with your product development.

 

How do we operate Product Development for Electronic and IT item in China

The project engineer is in charge of :

- Build up the team including the skills that get required face to the product technical specification

- Organize the planning for each stakeholder

- Follow up and track  with each stakeholder

- Control and verify goal and milestone are achieved

- Ensure the coordination between each stake holder is smooth

- Is the one stop point for principals communication and reporting

 

How you can benefit from our Project Management Service for Electronic Product Development in China

We have versatile experience covering: electronics engineering, firmware developpement; user interface customization, mould and casing, prototyping, and manufacturing

Our team become your outsourced development team which is based overseas handling  project which cost is fixed in advance (hence foreseeable), so you get no bad surprise.

Our project management service for electronic product handle all those stakeholder for you from A to Z in a full time way, so you can save time (hence money), remain competitive, arrive quickly on the market with an innovative product and focus on developing your sales volume  instead of thriving with cultural and environment gap, suffering jet lag management, lack of technical knowledge.

Not only we manage with all those hassle for you by handling every brick of your project but we also make available to you our skills and expertise of the electronic asian ecosystem, our engineering background, our knowledge of project management, engineering and manufacturing.

The goal of our electronic product development company in China

Our goal is simple: help our clients and partners to develop quickly and efficiently their electronic product at competitive cost, and this to be on time on their market and generate rapid success and recoginition.

On the base of commitment, trust, and transparency, we help our customers to operate cost reduction, control quality and keep safe their intellectual property in Asia while developing and manufacturing their electronics product with original design and functionnality to stay one step ahead the competiton.

Although being behind the scene, we consider your success as being our own success. We get satisfaction from getting you being satisfied and by seeing you enjoying to achieve what your potential competitor could not.

We are proud to help and assist you with complex and original product and achieving your goals. Feel free to contact us if you want to discuss your needs.

 

Confidentiality when developping electronic product in China

We consider confidentiality as a keystone of our activity. We develop new products supposed to be ahead the competition of our client and for this reason (in order to produce a "Wow" effect) it is absolutely essential for them their project to remain confidential and undisclose untill they decide to do so. We fully understand those crucial elements and we commit in those principles too.

You will never see any of your product developped with us to appear on any website (not even ours to promote our capability), B2B platform, tradeshow, company introduction, etc... We embrace fully this confidentiality attitude and we hope you will understand it when asking us for references.

 

Management Principles of our electronic product design company

We have strong comitment on what we do and the way we shape our mind to approach a project as a particularity of turning idea into successfull product. We believe in people and in system. 

We believe in people because this is people who create system and because this is people who generate originality, idea and new concept. We believe also in system, because system is what implement discipline, processus, allow to control and minimize risk and mistake possibility. Below a few motto we live and breath in our company: 

- Be able to operate auto-critics on your work
- Never assume anything
- It is better a stupid question than a stupid mistake
- There is always a better way to do
- If you can not measure, you can not control, if you can not control you can not manage

We hope to be your future partner for product development and manufacturing in Asia.

The PAG Management Team

Manufacturing Electronic Products in China

It sounds easy to manufacture electronic product in China. Many people think: I give my design as an input and a finished perfect output will get out by itself.

Considering our manufacturing approach for mass production and product development, this is what We believe in system and organization. We believe in control, traceability, root cause analysis, continuous improvement

We believe in core quality management objectives:

- Improved consistency

- Enhanced focus on the customer

- More focused leadership

- Employee involvement

- Systematic approach

- Continuous improvement

- Decisions based on facts

- Mutually beneficial supply chain relationships

- Improved internal working leading to less errors and rework


- Improved customer satisfaction and loyalty
 3.) Improved morale and motivation
 4.) Preferential insurance premiums
 5.) Competitive advantage
 6.) Increased profitability
 7.) Enhanced status

When used within a quality management system, such an approach emphasizes the importance of

a) understanding and meeting requirements,
b) the need to consider processes in terms of added value,
c) obtaining results of process performance and effectiveness, and
d) continual improvement of processes based on objective measurement.

The organization shall establish, document, implement and maintain a quality management system and
continually improve its effectiveness in accordance with the requirements of this International Standard.
The organization shall
a) determine the processes needed for the quality management system and their application throughout the
organization
b) determine the sequence and interaction of these processes,
c) determine criteria and methods needed to ensure that both the operation and control of these processes
are effective,
d) ensure the availability of resources and information necessary to support the operation and monitoring of
these processes,
e) monitor, measure where applicable, and analyse these processes, and
f) implement actions necessary to achieve planned results and continual improvement of these processes.

Where an organization chooses to outsource any process that affects product conformity to requirements, the
organization shall ensure control over such processes

The type and extent of control to be applied to these
outsourced processes shall be defined within the quality management system.

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Our company address

1

PAG Electronics - Shenzhen  

Shahe industry area, Baishizhou, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, 518053, China
2

PAG Electronics - Shanghai

Room 1019, No.100 Nanshan Road, Shanghai, China