RPF Technical Services
CASE STUDY 3
Introducing a flexible engineering resource, which identified and resolved several serious design faults and led to larger orders for the OEM.
Problem:
Client ‘C’, an OEM in the satellite industry, was in desperate need of engineering resource to assist with a new equipment design for one of their biggest Customers. Prototypes had been made but the performance of the equipment was far below their Customer’s requirements. The in-house engineering personnel had tried for several weeks to rectify the problems but were unsuccessful, and as they were also working on other projects, did not have the time to devote to it.
Solution:
A senior member of our engineering team was contracted to the company on a fixed-term twelve-week contract, with the sole task of looking at every aspect of the design and the performance to ascertain where the problems existed and to solve them. Within the first week of the contract, two major design flaws had been uncovered and a further problem with one of the test jigs solved another of the problems. Within four weeks, further anomalies had been discovered. By designing some simple circuits, plotting them and getting PCB’s etched onto photo-board using a UV lightbox and an etch tank (to keep costs to a minimum), he was able to incorporate them into one or two sections of the existing design to test his theories. The bespoke boards solved the PCB issues, performance was improved and the designs were changed accordingly.
By the tenth week of the contract, all the design faults had been identified, solutions designed and incorporated into the equipment, and all the test jigs and procedures had been checked and reviewed.
Result:
Final testing began at the beginning of week eleven. The equipment met, and in some cases exceeded, the required specifications. The performance of the system had been optimised in excess of Customer requirements, resulting in our Client’s Customer placing 10% larger than anticipated orders.
Our work was successfully completed before the end of the contract.