-
- News
- Books
Featured Books
- design007 Magazine
Latest Issues
Current IssueLevel Up Your Design Skills
This month, our contributors discuss the PCB design classes available at IPC APEX EXPO 2024. As they explain, these courses cover everything from the basics of design through avoiding over-constraining high-speed boards, and so much more!
Opportunities and Challenges
In this issue, our expert contributors discuss the many opportunities and challenges in the PCB design community, and what can be done to grow the numbers of PCB designers—and design instructors.
Embedded Design Techniques
Our expert contributors provide the knowledge this month that designers need to be aware of to make intelligent, educated decisions about embedded design. Many design and manufacturing hurdles can trip up designers who are new to this technology.
- Articles
- Columns
Search Console
- Links
- Events
||| MENU - design007 Magazine
Selling PCB Design Services in a First-World Country
February 17, 2017 | Lance Olive, Better Boards Inc.Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Quality PCB design is an evolving breed of services in first world countries. As North American and European companies squeeze the skilled designers out of their own workforce, pushing more of the work into Eastern Europe and Asia, those who remain with the skills either opt for retirement, career change or consolidation.
As the business operations manager for Better Boards Inc., I see our company at the focal point for consolidation: a gathering of skilled board designers to create a center of excellence. It is at this point that we have the critical problem facing a PCB design services company: How do we effectively sell these services back to the companies that cast off their own skilled employees? How do we sell PCB design services into small companies that can barely afford the one overworked electrical engineer that they hired last year?
In addressing these key questions, we evaluate the three key challenges and embrace the three tantalizing opportunities. Doing this well gets our foot in the door and positions us to sell these services in the hardware design teams that would prefer to be designing circuits rather than layouts.
The Challenges
The first challenge is the price competition from both overseas labor and the designer working from home. PCB design layout service rates in Europe and North America remain relatively high for companies who know the value of the skill that designers bring. Meanwhile, small companies in the Czech Republic, Poland, India, Russia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and China can offer layout services for about half of those domestically. Likewise, the designer in his bonus room has very low overhead (sometimes quite literally, thanks to knee walls), and can often undercut the hourly rates of a proper services company.
The second challenge is that of being multilingual in CAD tools. Between the customers demanding that we use Cadence Allegro, Altium, Mentor Graphics Xpedition, Eagle, KiCAD or many other cheap and free tools, it’s enough to drive a designer mad. No person can reasonably support all of those. To support multiple customers means to support multiple tools. This is difficult to achieve with just one or two designers, since most professional designers are great at one tool, fair with another, and merely aware of the rest. Being successful means establishing a team of designers with varying skillsets—a matrix of designers with a mix of tool knowledge that can support any type of RFQ that comes in.
To read this entire article, which appeared in the January 2017 issue of The Printed Circuit Design Magazine, click here.
Suggested Items
Siemens’ Breakthrough Veloce CS Transforms Emulation and Prototyping with Three Novel Products
04/24/2024 | Siemens Digital Industries SoftwareSiemens Digital Industries Software launched the Veloce™ CS hardware-assisted verification and validation system. In a first for the EDA (Electronic Design Automation) industry, Veloce CS incorporates hardware emulation, enterprise prototyping and software prototyping and is built on two highly advanced integrated circuits (ICs) – Siemens’ new, purpose-built Crystal accelerator chip for emulation and the AMD Versal™ Premium VP1902 FPGA adaptive SoC (System-on-a-chip) for enterprise and software prototyping.
Elevating PCB Design Engineering With IPC Programs
04/24/2024 | Cory Blaylock, IPCIn a monumental stride for the electronics manufacturing industry, IPC has successfully championed the recognition of the PCB Design Engineer as an official occupation by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). This pivotal achievement not only underscores the critical role of PCB design engineers within the technology landscape, but also marks the beginning of a transformative journey toward nurturing a robust, skilled workforce ready to propel our industry into the future.
IPC Design Competition Champion Crowned at IPC APEX EXPO 2024
04/24/2024 | IPCAt IPC APEX EXPO 2024 in Anaheim, California, five competitors squared off to determine who was the best of the best at PCB design.
Altus Group Helps BitBox Unlock Productivity and Efficiency Gains with New Reflow Oven
04/22/2024 | Altus GroupAltus Group, a leading provider of capital equipment, has recently assisted BitBox, a UK-based electronics design, engineering and manufacturing company in upgrading its operations with the implementation of a new reflow oven from Heller Industries.
Real Time with... IPC APEX EXPO 2024: Exploring IPC's PCB Design Courses with Kris Moyer
04/18/2024 | Real Time with...IPC APEX EXPOGuest Editor Kelly Dack and IPC instructor Kris Moyer discuss IPC's PCB design training and education offerings. They delve into course topics such as design fundamentals, mil/aero, rigid-flex, RF design, and advanced design concepts. They also highlight material selection for high-speed design, thermal management, and dissipation techniques. The interview wraps up with details about how to access these courses online.